Some possible topics:
Whoa! I need to run out and vote for sheriff — This totally snuck up on me, which never would have happened when I was still at the paper. Any of you who also live in Lexington County, please share any thoughts you have on the subject. I’m probably going to follow my colleagues’ advice (they’ve met with and quizzed all of these guys; I have not) and vote for Jay Koon, even though the governor backs him.
Netanyahu Criticizes ‘Bad Deal’ — Don’t know whether he’s right or not. But I agree with Susan Rice (for once) that “A bad deal is worse than no deal.” Hope she means it. But now that it’s done, what do y’all think? Should Bibi have spoken to Congress, or not?
House passes legislation to fully fund DHS — I know it was silly of me to worry, but I seldom travel by air, and I’ve never traveled as far from home as we’re about to, and it was stressing me just a little bit to think of having to deal with ticked-off TSA workers who are not getting paid to work. After all, I went to all that trouble to buy a backpack that I was assured was the right size for carryon, and what if I get somebody who arbitrarily announces it isn’t? I don’t want to check it and lose all my stuff somewhere between here and Southeast Asia…
Y’all have any other ideas?
And just for a little something extra to talk about: Do you suppose even Robin Hood could have done this?
Related Posts
You will be happy to find that the TSA won’t make you remove your belt. Not sure if this is official policy yet, or just TSA workers’ weariness of enforcing stupid rules on people (oh wait, they still have no shortage of stupid rules to enforce). Seems to be true of leaving on watches as well, but I never wear one anymore.
They also don’t give a flying rip whether you place your small bottle liquids in a zip lock bag and place them separately in the plastic bin or just leave in your bag – despite the fact that they will stand there shouting this like a carney.
Change in your pocket still pisses them off…
I have to wear a watch. It’s the best way of politely checking the time, and I need to know what time it is all the time–a legacy of billing by the six-minute increment…
but does anybody really know what time it is?
Does anybody really care?
If so, I can’t imagine why.
Also…
How is looking at your watch polite? The standard way to communicate that you’re bored and think this has gone on too long is to look at your watch…
[checks watch]
I’m surprised but pleased that Boehner let a clean bill go through. During the last shutdown, he should have done the same thing, but couldn’t bring himself to do it. Perhaps he’s learned a little about governing in the interim.
For carry-ons the universal realpolitik rule, unfortunately, is if you can physically carry it you can bring it on with you.
Then I should be all right. Maybe I should have gotten a bigger backpack.
I talked to a guy at River Runner who travel a lot with backpacks, and he said it didn’t matter the size; they were usually pretty cool about it. But I don’t like to depend on other people’s cool, because if I’m disappointed, I’m almost sure to blow mine…
I fit everything for a month in Germany into a little wheelie bag and a moderate sized purse. You can, too. Figure you’ll have to rinse out your underwear and socks (skin parts, as theatre people call them) and live with the rest–or carry a small spritz bottle of rubbing alcohol to refresh them…
Yeah, that’s the plan. My wife sees no problem with that. You know why? BECAUSE WOMEN ARE USED TO WASHING OUT STUFF BY HAND AND HANGING IT IN THE BATHROOM.
I’m as comfortable with that as I would be trying to write left-handed. But I’m going to try…
As I said before, I’m taking this as a challenge, like Nick Adams trekking to Big Two-Hearted River with everything he needed on his back, trying to get back to basics…
I voted for Koon. Feel slightly guilty that I didn’t thoroughly vet the others as much as I usually like to. It was a time issue. But there seemed to be more info about him and what I heard seemed favorable.
I couldn’t vet them the way I like to do, either. They didn’t come to my office for interviews, for some reason. 🙂
House passes legislation to fully fund DHS —
Yeah, but with barely any support from the gret stet of South Carolina (surprise, surprise). All the state’s congressional delegation voted “ney” save for that lone D.
Hillary Clinton’s use of a personal, private email account while Secretary of State is very interesting.
http://news.yahoo.com/clinton-ran-homebrew-computer-system-official-emails-081111269–politics.html
It starts with a cover up. Hopefully, the press will not buy into the “move on” theme that the Clinton’s typically use.
I need to read more about that. Is the allegation that she used her private email account for official business?
OK, I just followed your link and got my answer in the lede: “on a private account she used exclusively for official business when she was secretary of state.”
As Dr. Venkman would say, “That IS weird…”
It’s not just the private email account.. it’s the whole email server setup. There is no reasonable explanation for that that doesn’t start with “I didn’t want anyone to have access to my emails”. There are huge character issues with both Clintons that should make her unworthy of consideration for the presidency.
True. She is now fully in Trey Gowdy’s sights – just when it was totally clear that he had inherited a lose-lose committee post.
i loved how Bill Clinton’s official portraitist completely dissed him in oil. That’s communicating with posterity.
Blackwater begat Monica Lewinsky. Benghazi begat email-gate.
The funniest take is folks speculating on her email address–like is it [email protected], [email protected]…..
Replace Hillary with Dick Cheney in this scenario and we’d quickly see the hypocrisy from both parties.
Maybe someone will take this to Federal Court and get a Supreme Court decision that all Government business is to be conducted through official government channels. It is unbelievable that anyone, from City Councilor on up, would be permitted to conduct public business through private email.
If I did that at work, I would be fired.
I’m surprised I haven’t heard any comments about Gen. Petraeus’ allowing his mistress access to secret info. After all, we’ve gotten into major snits when anyone else allowed access of said secrets to others.
Edward Snowden, if he ever returns, should be given the same deal as Petraeus. We need the Snowden’s to keep the Petraeus’ in check.
You certainly have things backward. You also lack perspective on the enormity and malice of what Snowden did…
I thought Snowden didn’t reveal anything we didn’t know already. You don’t appreciate him not following officials channels.
In terms of the enormity of what he did, I agree. It was an enormous benefit to the American public to understand just how pervasive the NSA’s spying on citizens is.
We knew the government was skimming the data. He gave specific, classified information.
What we knew might have made terrorists nervous. What he gave them told them precisely how we were doing it, so that they can better evade detection.
It’s a huge difference, and I don’t know why you don’t see it.
He committed a huge, sweeping crime against this country and its allies…
You assume the terrorists don’t have the desire or ability to determine what the NSA is doing. The general public isn’t interested.
Or are you suggesting that what Snowden revealed came as a total surprise to the terrorists — who likely already expect that THEIR calls are monitored?
The general public wasn’t interested until Snowden grabbed their attention in the most lurid and sensational way he could imagine, causing people to have a snit and for steps to be taken to curtail our intelligence gathering…
Also, I haven’t noticed much evidence that terrorists are rocket scientists. Much of what they do is pretty stupid.
It’s rather amazing that they haven’t managed another 9/11 after all this time. No, not flying planes into buildings — we have plenty of countermeasures now against that. Something else.
They’re not brilliant people, by and large. But if you make a big enough fuss about our intelligence-gathering, eventually they’ll notice…
While I do believe that Snowden should face some kind of sanction for his actions, I cannot take the outraged ”throw the book at him“ view that Mr. Warthen does.This is because of the experience others within the national security apparatus have had who chose to become whistleblowers, folks like Thomas Drake and Bill Binney (who resigned from a senior position at the NSA after he learned that the agency was engaged in domestic spying). It was their experience that led Snowden to conclude that trying to go through official channels wouldn’t work. As reported in a Washington Post piece:
“Binney says he and two other NSA colleagues who also quit tried sounding the alarm with congressional committees. But because they did not have documents to prove their charges, nobody believed them. Snowden, he says, did not repeat that mistake.
‘He recognized right away, it was very clear to me, that if he wanted anybody to believe him, he’d have to take a lot of documentation with him — which is what he did,’ Binney says.”
Drake, Binney as well as another former NSA official, J. Kirk Wiebe, have all spoken out in support of Snowden – such as in this round-table, for instance:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/06/16/snowden-whistleblower-nsa-officials-roundtable/2428809/
Oh, sorry. I didn’t realize that it’s a terrible thing if some low level person gives away secret gov. info to the press, but ok when a general gives it to his mistress. Somehow I can’t approve of either; nor do I see the first as a worse offense than the second.
I’m sorry you don’t see the difference, too.
One guys screws up and allows a situation in which one person has access to classified information. That’s bad. Really bad. Especially when the one guy is head of the CIA. Amazingly stupid. It’s a shame to see a fine career end in such sordid disgrace, but he brought it on himself, and he owed it to all of us not to do something like this.
As bad as that situation is, the other is millions of times worse. Snowden deliberately gathered an extremely wide array of classified information — so comprehensive that the experts were stunned that he managed to gain access to so much — and deliberately broadcast it to the world (a set which includes those who mean this nation harm) in as damaging a way as he could think of. With malice aforethought. And immediately fled the country, because he was fully conscious of exactly what he had done, and would continue to do, and how extremely illegal it was. And he steadfastly refuses to face the consequences of his actions.
So it is indeed hard for me to see how you don’t see the difference.
I believe Snowden was doing what he thought was the right thing. Petraeus certainly was not.
So what we have here is a big head / little head juxtaposition. Hubris from either is the downfall of man.
I’m with Karen on this, between the little twerpy analyst and the major General/Dir. of the CIA the worst offender is the general. However, in this case, the analyst’s betrayal was far, far more damaging to our country. Neither has brought any honor to himself; though Snowdon at least started with an admiral principal – but then immediately squandered it (what might have happened had Snowden never encountered Glenn Greenwald’s own hubris?). Petraeus only earned a glimmer of redemption when he pled guilty.
Yep, so did LOTS of people who did very bad things.
You have a dolt who thought he was doing something good, up against a respected, and very smart leader who should have known better. We are lucky that his mistress didn’t decide to do an expose and publish the info he handed her. Now, if you say that the reason a person commits a crime doesn’t matter, then these crimes are very similar in that they both exposed our country’s secrets to person(s) who should not have had access. It’s also arguable that the main fault with Snowdon was that he was allowed to access to that information to start with. There was a massive flaw in our security system.
Such cannot be said of Gen. Petraeus. A person in his position had to be privy to such info. He had to be trustworthy; he was not. The best one can say is that he at least is honorable enough to be ashamed of himself, which is more than one can say for that fool, Snowdon. So sorry if you cannot understand this.
We definitely distinguish in traditional crimes (malum in se, for those kibbitzing at home) about intent, the reason someone does an act. In regulatory crimes (malum prohibitum), we theoretically do not, but in practice frequently do. These were malum prohibitum crimes, unless you are talking treason, which is malum in se.
I agree that Snowden shouldn’t have had the access he did. And I haven’t heard a good explanation yet as to how that happened. I don’t mean, how did he get that job. I mean how, in that job, did he managed to get ahold of so much compartmentalized information? THAT is something that calls for an overhaul…
What you’re calling for is an even more security-obsessed bureaucracy than already exists – one that has grown so large that as of 2013, some 4.9 million people needed security clearances of one type or another in order to do their jobs. Why did Snowden have the clearance he had? The answer is simple: because his employer, Booz Allen Hamilton, applied for it so he could fulfill the duties they assigned him. Granting clearance and the level of clearance a person receives doesn’t depend on education, training or even position, but whether or not the person needs it – pending the results of a background check and DoD approval, both of which Snowden was subject to. An entire cottage industry has grown up around the need to get clearances – an industry that has blossomed as the national security state has grown ever larger with ever more material placed under classification. As someone who favors a functioning national security apparatus, what you’re suggesting could well be a recipe for increased dysfunction. A system like the current one that has to handle as many people as it does will invariably make errors and be vulnerable to cheating. But it’s not clear that Snowden was vetted poorly.
Well, that’s the constant question, isn’t it? Do you keep things secure by compartmentalizing, or make things more efficient by knocking down walls?
After 9/11 — which happened in part because of a lack of communication between different government entities — we decided to knock down walls, such as those between the CIA and the FBI. But there had been good reasons to have barriers between those agencies — and not just national security reasons. There were civil liberties reasons as well. CIA wasn’t supposed to spy on U.S. citizens in this country, for instance.
Now I don’t have current knowledge regarding the extent to which that has changed. I just know that after 9/11, the attitude was that we no longer wanted the left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing…
My mother when traveling would wear the same dress every day, wash it out every night, and throw it away when she got home.
I used to follow a blog called Miss Minimalist, and she used to extol how she’d pack in only a wheelie, to ease European sightseeing, but then she figured that packing so it would fit into a shoulder bag purse was even more convenient. She pretty much did what your mother did, except I don’t think she threw the dress away. Ex Officio and other companies have such excellent technical fabrics for pretty much any item of clothing.
Well, I guess I could try that, but I’d rather not wear a dress. There are plenty of ladyboys in Bangkok already…
Clinton likely had some specific reason for also using a private account. I would imagine for back-channel communications that aren’t officially archived.
You’re aware that this wasn’t a supplemental private e-mail to her official e-mail, right? This private e-mail address was IN LIEU of her official e-mail address.
The only reason to have an unofficial, off-the-books e-mail account is to hide something.
The private email is strange but it’s a leap stridently claim hiding something is the ONLY reason for it.
Like what?
I am a member of a group that is developing a statement for the Society of American Archivists regarding the use of private emails accounts for public business. This practice is within the law; since 2009 the National Archives’ regulations have stated that “Agencies that allow employees to send and receive official electronic mail messages using a system not operated by the agency must ensure that Federal records sent or received on such systems are preserved in the appropriate agency recordkeeping system.” (36 CFR 1236.22) The Presidential and Federal Record Act Amendments of 2014 (signed into law on November 2014) prohibit the use of private email accounts by government officials unless they copy or forward any such emails into their government account within 20 days. (44 USC 2911) However, the Archivist of the United States advised against this practice in September 2013. The fact that the emails were not originally preserved in an “agency recordkeeping system” and the gap between the time Clinton left office and copies of the emails were turned over to the State Department is problematical. It should be noted that governmental officials of *both* parties and at many levels of of authority have been reluctant to comply with the spirit of the relevant legislation.
Did a quick check, and it looks like the relevant rule was finalized in 2006. Here’s a link to the Federal Register:
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2006-02-21/pdf/06-1545.pdf
It’s not brain surgery, y’all. It’s just law. Even a moron like me can do it.
Well, you do have a superior search capacity, no? Or are you just using Google?
But reading that stuff is just so danged BORING…
Nah, this doesn’t appear to have anything to do with the current controversy. This direction has to do with retention of very short-term transitory emails. It doesn’t even touch on the matter of using private email accounts to conduct public business.
The current cite is: 36 CFR 1236.22 (2009). Here ya go:
“(a) Agencies must issue instructions to staff on the following retention and management requirements for electronic mail records:
(1) The names of sender and all addressee(s) and date the message was sent must be preserved for each electronic mail record in order for the context of the message to be understood. The agency may determine that other metadata is needed to meet agency business needs, e.g., receipt information.
(2) Attachments to electronic mail messages that are an integral part of the record must be preserved as part of the electronic mail record or linked to the electronic mail record with other related records.
(3) If the electronic mail system identifies users by codes or nicknames or identifies addressees only by the name of a distribution list, retain the intelligent or full names on directories or distributions lists to ensure identification of the sender and addressee(s) of messages that are records.
(4) Some e-mail systems provide calendars and task lists for users. These may meet the definition of Federal record. Calendars that meet the definition of Federal records are to be managed in accordance with the provisions of GRS 23, Item 5.
(5) Draft documents that are circulated on electronic mail systems may be records if they meet the criteria specified in 36 CFR 1222.10(b) of this subchapter.
(b) Agencies that allow employees to send and receive official electronic mail messages using a system not operated by the agency must ensure that Federal records sent or received on such systems are preserved in the appropriate agency recordkeeping system.
(c) Agencies may elect to manage electronic mail records with very short-term NARA-approved retention periods (transitory records with a very short-term retention period of 180 days or less as provided by GRS 23, Item 7, or by a NARA-approved agency records schedule) on the electronic mail system itself, without the need to copy the record to a paper or electronic recordkeeping system, provided that:
(1) Users do not delete the messages before the expiration of the NARA-approved retention period, and
(2) The system’s automatic deletion rules ensure preservation of the records until the expiration of the NARA-approved retention period.
(d) Except for those electronic mail records within the scope of paragraph (c) of this section:
(1) Agencies must not use an electronic mail system to store the recordkeeping copy of electronic mail messages identified as Federal records unless that system has all of the features specified in §1236.20(b) of this part.
(2) If the electronic mail system is not designed to be a recordkeeping system, agencies must instruct staff on how to copy Federal records from the electronic mail system to a recordkeeping system.
(e) Agencies that retain permanent electronic mail records scheduled for transfer to the National Archives must either store them in a format and on a medium that conforms to the requirements concerning transfer at 36 CFR part 1235 or maintain the ability to convert the records to the required format and medium at the time transfer is scheduled.
(f) Agencies that maintain paper recordkeeping systems must print and file their electronic mail records with the related transmission and receipt data specified by the agency’s electronic mail instructions.”
“(b) Agencies that allow employees to send and receive official electronic mail messages using *a system not operated by the agency* must ensure that Federal records sent or received on such systems are preserved in the appropriate agency recordkeeping system.”
Does this not appear to consider that employees might be using personal email systems?
Systems, yes. But not necessarily a private address. And it still imposes all the same requirements even if you have your own personal system.
The whole thing with her running her own server is absurd.
And it requires the Agency system be used for the preservation.
But not when the records needed to be placed on that system — apparently that was, at least at the time, the state of things.
Still not clear what any of this has to do with the latest Clinton cause célèbre. To quote Mr. Cross above: “the use of private emails accounts for public business. This practice is within the law….”
But you go ahead and keep on rummaging through those CFRs until you come up with one that serves your obvious dislike for Clinton. Look, there is at this point reason for concern about the potential lack of transparency in what the former SecState did. On the other hand, reporting by folks who’ve taken a closer look at this than you or I have say that the relevant rules were a little different when Clinton was in the administration. Reporting also shows that former Sec. Powell used private email for personal matters – though he apparently didn’t use a personal server. Jeb Bush did as Florida governor, though he reportedly turned the records on it over to the state according to that state’s schedule. (Even so, you have to wonder how well any of this would hold up if an intense spotlight were directed at it. And in that regard, as someone who in the past worked for a company subject to federal records retention rules and schedules, I can tell you that things were not always handled in the neatest way there, either.) As for Clinton, I have to wonder of the Wikileaks affair may have played a role in what Clinton chose to do, given that a great many of the documents Manning/Assange released were from the State Department. All that being said, it’s not at all clear that any material that Clinton created or used and then stored on her own server has been deleted or lost. Only time will tell. What is clear at this point, however, is that Republicans in Congress are not much motivated by concern for the public trust.
There is not a legitimate reason why any politician or political appointee would would conduct state business exclusively (I am not so naive as to think that their are not occasional times where back channel diplomacy is appropriate) through a “private” communication system in lieu of an official agency system. Doesn’t matter what political party or what individual person, the answer remains no legitimate reason.
Saying “the rules were different then” in no way excuses the complete ethical failing that is this story.
This isn’t a story about whether Hillary is either a scoundrel or a scapegoat. That’s just inane deflection. This story is about whether government is structured so as to be accountable to the people. This is about starring into the abyss of democracy.
The “abyss”?! Well now! Then I suppose you would agree that others who’ve used the same approach (some mentioned above) have likewise contributed to sending us careening down toward that same abyss. But, really Mr. Stewart, while I appreciate that the blogosphere is often a fact-free zone,it would behoove you to put aside your personal opinions a moment and cleave a bit more to the regulatory facts as they existed at the time. You may not like them, but there they are.
No need to get testy, y’all…
Cleave to the regulatory facts as they existed at that time? Those are not anything I care about in this situation. That should have been quite clear.
Facts are like trees, reason like the forest.
A reasoning person would look at the situation where the highest appointed cabinet member in the executive branch was operating their official email system through a server in their own home at an address which had nothing to do with the Federal government and conclude that this is an unacceptable practice which does, in point of fact, undermine our Constitutional republic and democracy itself.
Instead of nattering on about existing federal statutes, regulations and other bits of nonsense, should we not be asking questions such as (i) why did the President condone this, (ii) who else in any of the branches of Federal government has an unofficial (as opposed to simply a supplementary personal or disclosed semi-official account) email or any other sort of communication device, (iii) if reviewed and approved by executive and/or legislative oversight bodies what was the rationale for approving such a circumnavigation of long-established accountability concepts?
Frankly, the ways in which this is ethically and politically suspect boggles the mind.
Hey, all I’m trying to do is get folks is to hold their horses and see what emerges, or doesn’t, rather than hyperventilating with talk of abysses and immediate disqualification for office. But maybe that’s a fool’s errand.
Oh Lord, so now this is going to get elevated even further into “what did the president know and when did he know it.” As if the Oval Office has nothing else to do besides check to see if everybody is doing their emailing right.
I just hope you feel that Sec. Powell, Gov. Bush and others were equally culpable when it comes to undermining the republic.
As for your state of mind, I can plainly tell that it is quite boggled.
There’s an interesting video clip floating around of esteemed Senator Clinton railing against the Bush White House for using “secret email accounts”.
If we are supposed to believe that nobody in the White House has any concern about sending emails to outside email addresses, then they are even more incompetent than I have come to believe over the past six years.
And apparently we are supposed to just accept Hilary’s own team culling the emails before passing them along as nothing to be concerned about. I’m SURE that every single email that might even suggest Hillary made a wrong move on Benghazi will be at the top of the pile in the interest of full disclosure.
People who vote for Hillary are dupes.
Yes, it doesn’t matter who the President or anyone else is. This isn’t a partisan issue.
Here’s another aspect of the private email server that opened up Hillary’s emails to major security concerns:
From Gizmodo:
“He pointed out that there is another valid domain, clintonmail.com, owned by somebody else with the last name Clinton since 2002 (note the lack of an “e,” which is the only difference between it and Hillary Clinton’s domain). “How many emails meant for the Secretary of State has the owner of clintonmail.com received?” Nielsen asked, adding that this isn’t a problem with .gov domains since only the government can register them. “In short, from a security perspective, using your own email address to conduct official business is a very bad idea, explains Nielsen.”
“It doesn’t even touch on the matter of using private email accounts to conduct public business.”
The fact that you can write that sentence without any sense of irony is hilarious.
I’m so looking forward to a Clinton presidency where we can delve back into the legal hair-splitting that we all enjoyed so much during the first Clinton presidency.
Do I have to rule on this, once you counselors get done with your arguments?
No, you take it under advisement and release an opinion many months from now…
Yeah. Being a judge is a great job.
Trouble is, I wouldn’t be good at it. Too many years of training my brain to operate a certain way. You jump into a thing that has to be decided NOW, and you interview people and read as much as you can as fast as you can, making up your mind as you go, and when the process is done and you’re fully decided, write the decision immediately.
And then you dump it all from your brain, and start on the next topic. And with me, the dumping is pretty complete. It’s an old joke, based in reality, that when a topic came up that we had dealt with previously, but it had been awhile, I would turn to Cindi (who had perfect memory about such things), and asked, “What do I think about that?” And she would remind me briefly of what I had concluded, and more importantly, WHY, so I’d be back up to speed and could proceed….
I’ve found it REALLY hard to work any other way. It’s been a challenge in non-newspaper work. I may talk with a client and consult other sources until I have a complete understanding of the subject, and then I go back to the office and have to shove that back to work on stuff that needs to be done TODAY, and then by the time it’s time to actually write something, I’ve lost everything. I even have trouble having an intelligent followup conversation with the client, because in the followup meeting, everyone clearly recalls all that was said in the previous meeting weeks before, and I remember nothing.
What I’m talking about is that I forget the UNDERSTANDING that I had gained in the previous meeting. It’s easy enough to write down names and amounts and dates. But notes have to be really comprehensive to reflect the development of your understanding of the subject.
If it’s not clearly set out in my notes — including every thought I had during the previous meeting — then I’m up the creek.
I think what happens is that there’s this little janitor in my brain that just doesn’t understand that I’m no longer running the editorial board of a daily newspaper. He’s a creature of habit, and he continues to do his job as he has always understood it: He goes around in my brain and finds my understanding and conclusions regarding the given subject, and since it’s more than a couple of days old, he throws it all out, to make room for new stuff. And I can’t seem to get him to stop doing that…
Anyway, that janitor would make it hard for me to issue rulings months later…
You could rule from the bench. I actually like it when Judges do that.
Take family court, for instance. What you described about “dumping your brain” after each case is exactly what the judges have to do. I’ve actually heard one judge make almost that exact same analogy.
They couldn’t do it any other way, because the docket is so packed. They make the best decisions they can, with imperfect information, and then move on to the next case.
You only need to think about stuff for a long time if you’re an appellate judge working on a long opinion.
“I am a member of a group” that benefits from the system of ethics that bans God. “If there is no God, then everything is permitted [e.g., South Carolina Legislature].”
###
“Without God, morality is reduced to a matter of opinion. As Ivan Karamazov mournfully declares in Dostoevski’s *The Brothers Karamazov*, ‘If there is no God, then everything is permitted.’ ”
” ” ‘s ~ Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, “Jewish Literacy,” page 49
Everything is Permitted is a track off Meat Loaf’s underrated 1981 Dead Ringer album.
Except that on every measure, people who do not believe in a god are just as “moral,” if not more so.
By what external standard? There’s the rub.
As you acknowledge by putting “moral” in quotes…
I can see a world in which an innate morality in humans gave rise to religions based on culture rather than each culture’s morality being driven by its religion. Most major religions have similar teachings insofar as what’s right and wrong in general behavior. Our differences arise from the details of worship and of the deity of the religion. The devil is in the details, so to speak.
Some agnostics and atheists feel it’s quite possible to live a moral life without drawing on God or religious faith. See, for instance, Phil Zuckerman’s new book, Living the Secular Life: http://www.amazon.com/Living-Secular-Life-Answers-Questions/dp/1594205086/ref=sr_1_1?tag=wburorg-20&s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1424895593&sr=1-1&keywords=living+the+secular+life
Yes, I’m quite familiar with that argument.
But my question remains. I end up asking the question that civil libertarians ask when I’m arguing with them: Whose morality?
Believers have a standard outside themselves, against which they may or may not fairly assess their own behavior. What does an atheist have? He has his own conscience, with no external standard — so what’s to stop him from simply rationalizing everything he wants to do?
Of course, I’m overstating the case. It’s been interesting to watch the development of secular standards of morality during my lifetime, and truth be told, some of them are so strict that they demand a conformity that might have made the Inquisition envious.
But I have to look askance at a system of morality that depends on fashion. While I might not be able to reliably discern right and wrong, I do firmly believe this: What is right today was right 1,000 years ago, and will be right 1,000 years from now, no matter what the social consensus may be at the time. Same thing with what is wrong. Take slavery, for instance.
If you go by the dynamics that justify secular morality — not the content, but the mechanics of it — then slavery was right 300 years ago. But it wasn’t…
That’s all well and good in the abstract, Mr. Warthen. In actual practice, though, I see no more reason to question the soundness or quality of the moral standards that secular people apply to their own lives than I would be willing to assume that a religious person’s standards are sound, let alone that he leads a moral life, simply by virtue of his religious faith or associations. Moreover, in saying that “believers have a standard outside themselves,” you seem to assume that secular people don’t. Religious people look “outside” themselves to God or faith for guidance (though they often fundamentally disagree about what it implies in terms of actions, behaviors or social norms). But that doesn’t mean that secular people look to their own interests first and foremost. They, too, look outside themselves — to society as a whole, to the needs and interests of others.
Half of what I wrote agreed with what you just said.
Start with the words, “Of course, I’m overstating the case…” That’s where I make my pivot, and acknowledge that the secular DO have a standard outside themselves, often a very insistent and demanding one. It’s based in societal consensus.
But then I expressed my doubts about a consensus that shifts over time…
That’s why I included the word “sound” to describe a secular person’s moral code: because I don’t think it necessary shifts with changes in societal consensus any more or less than a religious person’s moral code does.
Well plenty of believers rationalize, and an internalized standard is far more likely to be adhered to. One doesn’t do certain things because one doesn’t want such things done to one, or because one realizes that these things will destroy the social contract, etc.
Why does there need to be an “external” standard? Isn’t the Golden Rule a useful one?
It certainly seems to work well enough for many seculars.
I so wanted to believe that for so long — but having befriended many atheists who would kill to preserve their way of life — I can no longer.
But I will defend to the last rotten tooth your right to believe as much!
“having befriended many atheists who would kill to preserve their way of life”
Sounds like a lot of religions at some point in time.
I must in all honesty attribute this amazing insight to Anne Moody (page __ ?) that redeems every word she said and every moment I have lived…
(Speaking of White Mississippi in the early 1960’s) They would ‘kill to preserve their way of life’
Still reading…
http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=15259639198&searchurl=isbn%3D9780440314882
Moral as in the same moral standards found in almost every faith. Don’t lie, don’t steal, don’t murder, don’t cheat on your spouse, and give to the poor and helpless. Basically the moral code found in the 10 commandments that were given by the same God who told Joshua and his army to cross the Jordan and kill every man, woman, child, and domesticated animal they found over there. The same one who also sent bears to eat a bunch of children who were teasing Elijah about his bald head. And yes, I know that the responsibility for caring for the poor and helpless is not in the 10, but it is scattered through the rest of the law, and the focus of almost every prophet. At any rate, a moral code need not be specifically attached to any one faith, and the basics seem to be pretty universal.
There is agreement on some basics, but it is beyond the basics that things get really interesting. I sat through a House committee hearing on the 20-week abortion ban, the so-called “Pain capable infant” abortion ban. The supporters assert that it is not acceptable to have exceptions to the abortion ban, such as severe abnormality of the fetus, rape, or incest. Anencephaly, in which the fetus develops without the forebrain needed for cognition, was used as an example of a case in which the fetus should be carried to term. This clearly attempts to impose someone else’s religious beliefs on the general populace, because there is simply no way that a fetus without a forebrain fits a general perception of what constitutes a human being, much less a “pain capable” one. Who is supposed to be perceiving pain? There is no one there to do that.
If you don’t accept the notion of a soul as a non-physical aspect of humanity, how on earth could you defend this any more than telling someone that they couldn’t abort a fetus developing as only an arm, or only a leg? How can you defend this any more than saying hospitals have an obligation to keep severed limbs pumping blood indefinitely? For that matter, if you believe in a soul, why would you believe that it doesn’t reside in every arm and finger? Why isn’t it in the tooth the dentist pulls? And this is before we get to the very important moral realm of what it means to treat as human a being that is entirely incapable of any kind of personal agency and must remain, for however long it continues to breathe, an object for the wishes and projections of the people who control its destiny. So, I think it is not only possible but common for people to have sound moral codes without religion. I also think religion can lead people to stray pretty far from any moral code that can be rationally defended.
I also think religion can lead people to stray pretty far from any moral code that can be rationally defended.
Isn’t religion, at a fundamental level, something that isn’t capable of being rationally defended?
Take the story of Abraham and Issac, for example. God gave Abraham the gift of a son when Abraham thought he and Sarah were no longer capable of having another child. Isaac was a gift from God. Several years later, God then tells Abraham to take his cherished son to the top of a mountain and sacrifice him (kill him).
How can you justify taking the life of your beloved child in any objective way? In the story, Abraham travels to the top of the mountain to kill his son, somehow blindly believing it will all work out, based on nothing that can be “rationally defended”.
Looking at it objectively, he is going to become a murderer. Abraham’s loyalty to God and his faith puts him outside normal ethics. At the very last moment, an angel stops Abraham’s hand from coming down on Isaac with the knife, and provides a ram for sacrifice instead.
I find Abraham admirable for his faith, and (to me) it’s one of the most powerful stories in the Bible
I am afraid that my faith is not that strong.
That is fine, if you wish to act on your faith wherever it may take you. That is quite different from demanding that others do so when only faith, or more accurately a very specific faith-based belief, demands that.
Well, actually, not so fine if you decide to kill your decidedly post-birth child. I should have said that it is fine if you wsh to admire that level of faith.
It’s more complicated than simply being admirable. At the same time, I find that level of faith terribly scary, because I don’t think I could ever have that level of faith. In that context, I find it admirable in the sense I don’t think I could ever have that much faith.
If that’s the level of faith that God requires, then I think I’ve fallen short. I can *say* that I have faith in God, (and I do say that) but it’s easy to simply say things. To step off the proverbial ledge and abandon your innate sense of what is objectively moral and good and right is supremely harder.
To B.C.:
” I find that level of faith terribly scary, because I don’t think I could ever have that level of faith. ”
But you DO have that level of faith — or apathy — whenever you entrust the “investigation”of your murdered neighbor to the ‘organization.’
In the most abstract of spiritual explanations, God was trying to move Humanity away from the practice of human sacrifice. It didn’t work in the long run. I.e., Jesus, the sacrificial lamb.
Por favor and excuse me, Mr. Warthen, et.al. [Catholicism and my entire family on my husband’s side].
Praise be to God!
I think that’s what’s now generally referred to as “blind faith.” Which can lead those so inclined to a state in which, “ as Oliver Wendell Holes, Sr. put it, they are “so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good” – or, quite literally, up to no good.
Of course, the Abraham and Isaac story is used by Christians to foreshadow God sacrificing his son for us all.
Which was the point of the readings in Mass just this past Sunday…
And why was a “foreshadowing” necessary?
Well, literary devices are divine, don’t you know? Also, there was a gun in the first act.
Well, that’s one of those things that divides Christians: whether these things were by nature divine or instead divinely inspired. And from that difference of opinion grows many things — including different moral standards, especially regarding social norms.
Because foreshadowing is a cool device… 🙂
Actually, I’m sort of ambivalent about the whole “everything in the Old Testament should be seen through a Christian lens” thing.
On the one hand, it’s appealing because it’s just neat to see everything as having meaning in terms of other things. It strokes pleasure centers in the brain. And it’s comforting to see the existence of a plan from the beginning. To think, God’s going somewhere with all this.
On the other hand, it delegitimizes Judaism, and that bothers me. It says all those things that are so sacred to Jews (and to Jesus the man) were just a warm-up for OUR thing. And that if you don’t interpret it OUR way, you just don’t get it. It makes Judaism into a prequel, like “Better Call Saul.”
That Jesus’ story so neatly fulfills the old Scripture, of course, gives us a key to the concerns and aims of the earliest Christians — they were eager to differentiate themselves from Judaism (at least, those of the dominant Paul party were, as opposed to Peter), but at the same time felt the need to make the case that Jesus WAS the Messiah — even though he did not re-establish the monarchy or rebuild the Temple.
So they told the story of Jesus a certain way, emphasizing points of agreement with prophecy, and parallels to the old stories…
“So they told the story of Jesus a certain way, emphasizing points of agreement with prophecy, and parallels to the old stories…”
Don’t “they” continue to tell the story of Jesus in that same way? Is it just a story or is it the divine, inspired TRUTH?
Well, we tell the story today in ways that are shaped by what the early Christians chose to tell us about Jesus.
And yes, I believe the Bible is divinely inspired, in that it communicates eternal truths to the extent that our hearts and minds are open to those truths.
But you can’t help seeing human political agendas in word choices. I mean, what about the way the Gospel of John repeatedly refers to “the Jews” as some sort of OTHER? As in this passage:
For fear of the Jews? Everybody in the ROOM was a Jew! How does that make sense? Well, it only makes sense in terms of the church politics of that moment in time…
It makes Judaism into a prequel, like “Better Call Saul.”
That works nicely.
“The Book of Joshua does not make for pleasant reading. It is filled with bloody, ruthless battles as the ancient Hebrew strive to win their land from the Canaanites. Yet the issues facing Joshua are remarkably similar to the issues facing Israel [and the U.S.A.] and the Jewish [and American] people today: how to secure and maintain a homeland in the face of violent hostility from one’s neighbors.”
~Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, “Jewish Literacy,” page 56
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😉
ancient Hebrew[s]
Where is Reuben the Chinese Muslim on this? He is the all-time best at denigrating the Hebrews for their bloodthirsty crimes.
Everyone is aware that those folks who form ISIL are think their take on religion is true, and that they are being faithful to it? Even though most mullah’s, not to mention other muslims think they are crazy apostate’s. Faith doesn’t always give you good morals.
I should have said Imam, not Mullah.
Morality is certainly relative to the times. At one time inter racial marriage was regarde as immoral. Few would say that now. Gay marriage is moving that way.
No, POPULAR, secular morality is a function of the times. The opinion of the community is a matter of fashion.
Whether something is actually right or wrong is not.
As a religious man Brad you’re merely rationalizing what should be obvious. Morality can only be judged by the times in which we live.
Neither one of you is entirely right – or wrong.
As with all things in life right and wrong are both absolute and evolutionary. There are things which we understand to be universal truths; but we are sentient beings and we also evolve our understanding of what is moral and ethical. And at times, society (in the sense of a geopolitically discrete social organization) runs off the rails and regresses into something almost like a black hole in space, tearing into the fabric of humanity.
It would be hard to argue that, all things considered, the world is – as a whole – more just than it has ever been in recorded history. It is also clear that we are so, so far from achieving our potential. In the same way, while I think it could be convincingly argued that organized religion(s) have been a key cornerstone in our ethical and moral evolution, it is also not difficult to argue that blind faith and adherence to a particular sect (any one of them) has had a retrograde influence on the development of humanity through time. It’s hard to believe that that is God’s will. It seems more likely that religious dogma is a human introduction, which is therefore as fallible as ourselves.
The big picture is what we should paint. It is easier to add detail and complexity to a good structure than it is to attempt to conjure something larger from rigidly (or loosely) drawn small fragments. And yet our human impulses often seem to be to try to force what we believe we know from our own specific experiences and outlook onto others. We have a very difficult time, humans do, sorting out the universal from the banal.
Was killing Osama Bin Laden wrong? It was certainly popular. But it was killing, and that would violate the commandment though shalt not kill. Some folks would say suicide in the case of an advanced, incurable disease is not wrong. Others would say it is wrong. There is just not a hard and fast set of rules to decide right and wrong. To say otherwise is wrong.