Morality vs. Politics and My Job as a GOP Operative
My favorite blog comment about How to Rig an Election: Confessions of a Republican Operative was “Well, that’s refreshing candor from a guy who’s probably going to hell.” It is a favorite because it assumes so much so wrongly.
Setting aside any debate over such a thing as hell, I was never hired by a campaign to be the moral compass. In fact, morality is a slippery slope and not a political dialogue I would willingly enter or incite. I was hired to engineer victory. With so much at stake, morality was not a luxury to be afforded candidates or their staff.
Campaign managers and consultants, in both U.S. political parties, are hired to win. Period. They are not hired to ease the political conscience – if anything they are hired to render it powerless (or at least frustrate it to the point of it giving up and going away). That was the dynamic I bought into when I became a Republican campaign manager and consultant; party v. party; Republicans v. Democrats; winning v. losing.
However, I never bought into the dynamic of Allen Raymond v. the United States government. So when that became my reality, the choice was easy. I never hesitated to tell the truth the moment our government knocked on my door and asked me what happened on Election Day 2002.
As a Republican campaign operative at the Republican National Committee it was drilled into me that election law attorneys serve the purpose identifying the bright line of the law so it could be taunted but not crossed. Anybody who has a problem with that or doesn’t get it doesn’t understand America. America is about self interest, within the rule of law. That’s where I erred.
I broke the law. It wasn’t my intent, but it was the effect. The law is like a wall, on one side the “decent hardworking Americans” like the Cleavers and the Huxtables, on the other felons and convicts. Nowhere in between, or anywhere else, is morality. The reason is because ours is a secular nation. Morality is the domain of organized religion, cults and Bill O’Reilly (allegedly), but not government. So when my judge derided me by asking, “Where was his moral compass?” I couldn’t understand a word he was saying. It was like comparing apples to fire trucks in Coptic. That was also a moment when righteous indignation got on its bench-level soap box and decided to make the law about morality, sending me the clear signal I was doomed to find myself on the same side of the wall as the felons and convicts.
Legislating morality was never my thing. When I was a Republican I believed in lower taxes and less government. I still do, minus the intrusion of snake handling, gun toting GOPers. What I believe in now, though, is compassion in every corner of life. As a felon I can attest there’s little of it directed at former inmates; for a Christian nation we sure don’t often act like it toward our fellow citizens trying to earn their way back over the wall.
The idea of going to hell doesn’t cross my mind much these days; there are too many inside-the-Beltway types ahead of me fooling themselves that they are Ward and Cliff. My suggestion is to not view politics through a morality filter and then get dismayed when elected officials start likewise legislating, because then there really will be hell to pay.
Comments (120)
I have to ask. Who cares what you think. You're obviously a convicted felon. In the eyes of the law YOU ARE NO DIFFERENT FROM A CHILD MOLESTER OR A CRACK DEALER. Crack Dealers and Child Molesters have similar fine distinctions between law and morality. Even at this point, you continue to evade responsibility or accountability for your actions.
Not your intent? Horseshit. Elsewhere you write about "taunting" the law. You go on at endless length about the absence of morality "Nowhere in between, or anywhere else, is morality." You're just being dishonest and evasive.
You didn't intend to break the law? And a child molester didn't actually intend to slip the hard one to that little girl. And the crack dealer didn't intend to take money for those little rocks. Right. You knew what you were doing, you knew that there were issues of legality, and you went ahead and did it anyway. What you really mean is that you didn't intend to be caught, you didn't intend to be held accountable.
Life is tough, ain't it.
Well, Hallelujah, and what brings on this conversion on the road to Damascus? This discovery of compassion, in addition to lower taxes and less government as a motivating principle?
So, it's all about You, You, You. Compassion suddenly has become important because you're not getting any. Not that you've expressed any regret or contrition.
If you were up in front a parole board, you'd go down in flames.
Go sing it to someone who cares.
January 14, 2008 7:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
The ALLCAPS moral outrage isn't helping. Obviously what he did was wrong, that's not being seriously disputed at TPMC. I'd still like to hear his views as to why he did what he did and why so many others do so.
btw, on tell-all books, a great one is John Perkins' “The Secret History of the American Empire: Economic Hit Men, Jackals, and the Truth about Global Corruption” which was featured in a Democracy Now video interview.
"... John Perkins told the story of his work as a highly paid consultant hired to strong-arm leaders into creating policy favorable to the U.S. government and corporations—what he calls the “corporatocracy. ...”
January 14, 2008 4:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Moral outrage? Nah, just making the point, and making sure no one missed it.
January 14, 2008 4:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'd also add that Raymond is partly correct, to the extent that our system encourages an immoral self interest and a rather dog eat dog view of life. He's also correct that courts are often manipulated for political purpose with little regard for principles.
I see deep cynicism in his belief that morality is only the domain of religion or that it's a more rational belief to be entirely self interested. Which is common among capitalists indoctrinated into laissez faire, Social Darwinism, and generally Ayn Randian mythology and devolutionary beliefs. He identifies as a Libertarian, who are particularly vulnerable.
Additionally it's entirely possible such people have biological conditions or are in part products of environments retarding development of healthy morality. We have to remember that people vary for many reasons, and that these issues will never be completely "fixed" but we can hope to understand them better.
Leading primatologists such as Frans de Waal, and going back even to Charles Darwin, have always demonstrated and understood that morality, as we experience it, is actually the product of evolution and serves us tremendously. Social species couldn't exist without it, and empathy and altruism are necessary efficiencies without which higher intelligence is impossible as a species.
But any system, even corrupt and devolutionary ones, are self reinforcing in the short term, till they catastrophically fail. We need to treat this as not only a criminal problem, but also a public health problem, and look at the environmental factors which are encouraging the Raymonds of the world to do so much harm.
And, as any good Christian or Primatologist would tell you, it's important to facilitate redemption, through confession and enlightenment.
January 14, 2008 5:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
"I'd also add that Raymond is partly correct, to the extent that our system encourages an immoral self interest and a rather dog eat dog view of life. "
No it doesn't. People who game the system encourage an immoral self interest and a rather dog eat dog view of life.
While I'm prepared to go with your point that Raymond is a sociopath, a failed Republican, or a victim of environmental circumstances, I'm absolutely unwilling to then go ahead and debate him on the merits as if he were none of these things.
I haven't read all the way down the comments yet, but so far, I'm with Valdron. Raymond made a totally immoral decision about what to do with his life, then broke the law while being immoral. He is now trying to act like being immoral would have been ok if he hadn't broken the law, because this is AMERICA and that's what real Americans do.
It's horse hockey, just like Valdron says, eh?
January 14, 2008 5:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's overly dualistic. It's not either/or. It's both.
Yes personal responsibility is certainly part of it. That's why Raymond personally went to jail for his actions. He ultimately acted of his own free will. But, there is also a corrupt and twisted ideological environment which encourages the problem by tilting the risk/reward equation towards immoral/unethical acts, and increases the number of people who chose to do so.
The Reagan, HW Bush, and Clinton deregulation which led to ENRON is a prime example of how an ideology of laissez faire scuttled rules, thereby green-lighting predatory behavior yielding huge profits, that further corrupted politics and the market, culminating in a huge crash and scandal.
I'm not diminishing his crime. Imo such white collar crimes should carry longer sentences to be proportional to harm done and culpability relative to common crimes. But it's still more important to look at the big picture.
To make a drug dealer analogy, Raymond is a corner dealer, maybe a low level distributor. But get rid of one Raymond and another will just pop up. One has to go after the big fish and the larger issues which create the environment.
January 14, 2008 8:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think you're making an argument which, while it might have merit in another context, is only going to get you in trouble in this one. Sadly, Raymond doesn't really deserve the benefit of doubt you're giving him.
Yes, an anything-goes atmosphere has an effect on behavior. But I maintain that people gaming deregulation are the ones who create the problem. A naturally moral person wouldn't say "Hey, the regulations are gone so now I can do as much unthinkable stuff as I want"--only gamers do this.
I'd be more willing to cut Raymond some slack if I thought he was an ill-educated, unenlightened guy acting in lockstep with his environment. But he wasn't a corner level dealer; he's an educated, articulate professional with ample exposure to the ideas of which he ran afoul. In context, the claim that he acted in thoughtless lockstep with his environment requires him to be awfully thoughtless, right up there with "she sure looked eighteen to me."
Also please bear in mind that Raymond is not acknowledging that he committed an immoral act and saying he's sorry. He's essentially saying that his morality or lack thereof was irrelevant to what he did--that it was only the fact that it happened to be illegal that got him into trouble. And as Valdron points out later in this discussion, Raymond blames the judge for bringing morality (substitute "ethics" if you like) into it at all.
Sure it's necessary to go after the "big fish." But at the end of the day, America (and perhaps the world) isn't about "self-interest within the bounds of the law," it's about "enlightened self-interest," in the sense of that whole enlightenment thing, with ethics and responsibilities balancing out self-interest at every turn.
The problem with the Republicans of late is not so much that they broke the rules as it is that, over and over, they broke the golden rule. It applies to their approach to elections, to rule of law, to torture, to economics; there's hardly an area of government where they haven't shortened that rule to "Do unto others."
And Raymond, a guy who almost certainly knew better, was right in there with them. So when it comes to going after the big fish, I'd consider him one. I hope it takes him a good long time to get back into the pond.
January 14, 2008 10:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not giving him any benefit of the doubt nor did I say to. Perhaps you should read what I wrote again.
Acknowledging that an individual has personal responsibility, and also that a system is corrupted, are not mutually exclusive. Try to understand that.
It's exemplified by the phrase "the banality of evil" and also that "following orders" is not an excuse.
January 15, 2008 3:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
I might have left it at "I guess we disagree on the finer points," but hey, thank you for pointing out the obvious in your reply, along with the exhortation to try to wrap my tiny little mind around your statement.
I did read what you wrote, I understood it perfectly, and I politely disagreed with your idea that the non-mutual exclusivity of personal responsibility and a corrupt system is a useful point as it applies to Raymond.
January 15, 2008 7:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
There is nothing "polite" about mischaracterizing what someone else wrote, as you did.
Nor is there anything "polite" about your attempt to play the victim now, for being called on it.
That's called being dishonest. And I would appreciate it if your would stop that.
January 15, 2008 3:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
I re-read this discussion and all I see is that we did not agree. While I acknowledge the presence of the environment you speak of, I disagree that Raymond was encouraged by it (your small-time dealer analogy). I see him, given his educational and societal position, as a "big fish," actively perpetuating something wrong.
So I didn't think it was extremely useful to discuss the system as it applies to Raymond, or if you prefer, in the context of talking about Raymond. (In fairness to you, I think there was a spot where I could have been more clear had I changed the words "the claim" to "any claim." It would have been more universal.)
What I am trying to say is that we disagree, which happens sometimes, and it's really not necessary to say things like "you should read my post again" or "try to understand."
When a date goes badly, it's best to kiss on the cheek and walk away. Both parties should avoid the urge to say things like "I bet you have heavy thighs" or "Your teeth disgust me." It just doesn't matter in the end.
(For the record, I'm sure your thighs and teeth are fine.)
If others feel I mischaracterized what kozmik wrote, please feel free to chastise--I'll check back and take my lumps if necessary.
I hope we will find ourselves more in agreement on other issues.
January 15, 2008 10:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
First you say we are a secular nation. Then you say we are a Christian nation. I don't think you can have it both ways. Whatever we are, morality is a concept that rises above religion. It is a concept of decency and fairness that most people recognize, regardless of country, race, creed, or gender.
There are some who believe that good deeds will result in religious reward, and there are some who believe that good deeds are simply righteous for their own sake. Either way, good deeds are moral actions, and they are just as relevant in government as they are in personal life, IMO, because they address how we see ourselves and how others see us.
January 14, 2008 8:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
That one word should be enough. But no:
Breaking rules may be a "slippery slope" ... where one thing leads to another. But morality itself? No. People may disagree on the egregiousness of things, but to pretend that morality itself is the problem is to evade the confessional.
Personally, I find your rationalizations both illogical and distasteful. I wish I could say an "encouraging word," but honestly, I can't find it.
January 14, 2008 8:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
You may have become convinced that morality is what may be logically and legally compared, explained, condoned, distinguished or sealed.
However, the population of incredibly complex American human beings, each individual and unique in heart, soul, mind and body, has a moral sense in the heart that has a connection to wisdom.
What "works" today may collapse tomorrow because of short term thinking. This is the analogy to short-term profit before folks really understand the product, and long term profit based on a profit that really takes care of its buyer within its objectively reasonable range of purposes.
This is exactly the sort of thinking I witnessed at national convention.
January 14, 2008 8:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
I suppose as a follow up, that I'm glad you wrote the book and put yourself and your culture on such vivid display.
On the other hand, I don't think that benign motives had much to do with it. Part of it was simply the need to cash a cheque when no one was offering you money.
Part of it was undoubtedly revenge on your fellow Republicans for turning their backs on you once you got caught doing their dirt for them.
Part of it is undoubtedly bragging, because in my experience of criminals like drug dealers - they like to brag, and confessionals make for great bragging.
Part of it may be a tin eared effort at redemption, in the way that some particularly sociopathic thug will try to shmooze the parole board with his conversion to Jesus.
You want my take? Thanks for the book, now goodbye. Get out of politics, you aren't good for it, it ain't good for you. Retrain, get a job as a plumber or a carpenter, manage a restaurant (on the other hand, do I want a guy who enjoys taunting the law in charge of food preparation... maybe not). Whatever.
January 14, 2008 8:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, we all know what's wrong with Raymond. But I'd still like to hear in detail what his rationalization is, and what details he knows.
Why are you tying to deride and silence that?
January 14, 2008 8:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
I do have a lot of compassion for people who've been on the wrong side of the law. A lot of our laws are stupid, after all and I think no less of the people who break those.
I also believe in redemption and change and so I hold no ill will towards anyone who has strayed and learned from it.
But it's rather ironic to see a Republican blaming the system the way you are here. It's the fault of how our politics is run, not of the people who bend and break the laws to engineer victories for their employer. It's the same kind of thing we heard from the Wall Street criminals a few years ago -- it wasn't their culture of greed and avarice, they just lived there.
Well, I have some sympathy for that point of view too. But then, I'm honest enough about my politics that I extend such sympathies to all rungs of society. I don't blame the poor for stealing bread the way Republicans do.
You want compassion? Fine, you got it. But I'm still going to raise my eyebrow at you for flaunting and attempting to profit from your criminality. You seem to have a pretty Hobbessian view of the world. Let me know how that works out for you.
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
January 14, 2008 8:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
The question isn't whether he's learned anything from it, but what has he learned from it.
It's very clear that there's no sense of contrition whatsoever. He says he didn't intend to break the law, well, he knew what he was doing. The truth was, he didn't intend to be caught. He didn't intend to be held accountable. That's the sum of it.
Some guy stealing a loaf of bread who walked into court with that attitude would be doing hard time right now.
January 14, 2008 8:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
Good point, Valdron. And it's always these types who want leniency for themselves and the harshest punishments meted out to those who truly commit crimes of necessity.
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
January 14, 2008 12:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well certainly white collar crime gets off far too easy. But, it's important to actually look at why. The status quo is largely complicit in creating the environment which encourages Raymond. He knows that. It's rampant.
Raymond basically says he doesn't believe in morality; he just wants to be on the winning team. That's incredibly common. It's the history life on earth before the evolution of intelligent social species, and always present in our reptilian brain.
For example, in the interview I linked to above, John Perkins lays out how he was recruited in college by the NSA to corrupt foreign leaders, and basically tell them to play ball and be bribed, or get killed. He points out that they recruited him upon identifying his weakness to power, sex, and greed.
January 14, 2008 7:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Apparently once a shill for the GOP, always a shill. You don't get a free ride for your amorality by trying to paint the other side as just as bad. The dirty tricks have all been on the Republican side going back as far as Nixon and Lee Atwater.
Apparently you haven't actually learned anything from your experience. I'm sure there are lots of questionable enterprises that would be willing to hire you for your "expertise". The Doonesbury cartoon has been running a parody of your type of moral judgment over the past few months with Duke's firm representing the country of Bezerkistan.
One of the reasons Obama has been getting so much traction is because people want to believe that it is possible to run without a dirty campaign.
Shame on you.
--- Policies not Politics
Daily Landscape
January 14, 2008 8:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
(Insert sound of crickets here) Is this a hit and run post? Do you think you can just dump your self serving crap on us and run away? I agree with Valdron here. Basically the issue is that you got caught. If you hadn't you would still be doing the same shit and traveling on your merry way. There is so much crap in this post but I'll address just a couple of things. First, you are for smaller government? Bullshit! You and your republican buddies have set yourselves up to rob the treasury, see Halliburton. Lower taxes? Yea sure until it's your children and grandchildren that have to pay for the little excursions in Iraq and elsewhere. There is a little saying around here: IOKIYAR. It's ok if you're a republican. Doesn't that about sum it up for you? Now run along and crawl back into the hole you came from.
January 14, 2008 8:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ayn Rand had candor. Republicans had you.
Normal people understand that selfishness is not a virtue. This is why Libertarians consistently poll in the single digits. Republicans would rather win, so they really have no choice but to lie.
Someone with a better moral compass would say America is about something else. Thomas Jefferson, for instance, thought America was about securing the inalienable rights of equal men, as endowed by the Creator.
So candor, my eye. Republicans are so deeply immoral their only choice is to lie and cheat.
January 14, 2008 9:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Normal people understand that selfishness is not a virtue. This is why Libertarians consistently poll in the single digits."
Funniest Libertarian line ever, as well as apt. Thank you.
January 14, 2008 5:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Terrific reception here so far!
Looking forward to the next post!!!
"Thank God George Bush is our president." -Rudy Giuliani
January 14, 2008 9:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
I can't seem to let this guy go.
Let's take a look at this:
Essentially, he's saying that winning isn't everything. Winning is the only thing. In his view, right and wrong, truth and lies, everything is irrelevant. The only thing that counts is winning. It's a zero sum mentality that has no room for morality or any other consideration.
I'd suggest that sort of mentality leads inevitably into criminality. When the only consideration is winning, then the only deterrent is losing. Breaking the law? A small price to pay... if you win.
His next sentence is extremely revealing:
In essence, a sociopathic criminal mentality. And what's extremely interesting here is its unwillingness to accept restrictions. Thus, he cannot be amoral on his own, his amorality has to affect and consume everyone around him. A political conscience anywhere must be rendered powerless, frustrated, it must be forced to give up and go away.
And here's the state of politics today...
Bullshit. He got caught red handed, and there was no way out. If he'd been able to lie, cheat, bribe or steal his way out, then he would have.
He expects us to accept that he experienced a pernicious amorality which when he applied it to a campaign actively sought out and destroyed 'conscience' wherever he found it. But that somehow, it never extended to conscience in other parts of his life. Don't think so.
His way of saying he didn't err.
At this point, he's making the self-serving argument that he's not really guilty. His thesis in the last few paragraphs is that law has nothing to do with morality, American society has nothing to do with morality, merely self-interest bounded only by a framework of law.
So when he's saying that the Judge decided to make the law about morality, what happened is that the Judge got it wrong. Here he was, simply acting with self interest, perhaps taunting the law. But the Judge has chosen to make it a moral issue, and therefore convicted him.
He acknowledges earlier that he broke the law, but right here, at this point, he's sort of saying that he didn't. It's the judge who screwed it up.
He's a victim, you see.
A victim of a crazed moralistic judge misapplying the law in the service of this wacky 'morality' ideology.
And now he's branded as being on the same side of the line as crack dealers and child molesters.
I have to say, given his obvious sociopathy, he belongs there.
The judge had it right.
January 14, 2008 9:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
..Morality is the domain of organized religion, cults and Bill O’Reilly (allegedly), but not government. So when my judge derided me by asking, “Where was his moral compass?” I couldn’t understand a word he was saying..
Morality at it's most basic level is the domain of the individual. It says you are responsible for your own actions. It means you show respect for your fellow citizens, respect for those who are trying to exercise their right to vote. In doing so you show respect for the men and women who have died in this land and in foreign lands to defend that right.
January 14, 2008 9:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
And there is a common morality shared by all individuals. In that there is hope that we may find ingenious ways to solve problems, putting the "partisan operatives" out of business. Again, this is a profession where money demands that someone cause divisive culture war so that the business stays brisk.
I'd be pleased if we could replace perpetual party organizations with temporary parties that rise up and form coalitions temporarily to take care of specific tasks.
January 14, 2008 10:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
For the record Mike, you might want to study the record of the Canadian Progressive Party, a movement of farmers, populists and social reformers which emerged in the 1920's, literally from out of nowhere and rose to become a dominant force in Canadian politics, reducing the Conservative Party to third place.
Sadly, the Progressives consistently failed to live up to expectations, notwithstanding capable and even brilliant members. After exploding onto the scene, the Progressives lost ground consistently to more traditional political parties until its rump was finally absorbed by the Conservative party.
An examination would highlight both the strengths and weaknesses of your approach, particularly in a system of government which facilitated third party movements.
January 14, 2008 10:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is completely tangential, but hopefully more enlightening than you-know-who slagging this guy over and over... On common morality, you might enjoy reading Steven Pinker's article in last Sunday's NY Times magazine.
January 14, 2008 10:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
You-know-who?
January 14, 2008 10:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
I suspect we both do ;)
January 14, 2008 11:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
Mr FU,
Care to elaborate on why you rated my comment a 2?
January 14, 2008 11:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sure: In my opinion civility is a prerequisite for learning anything from a discussion, and there's not nearly enough of it online. I think your post added very little to the discussion, and did so rudely (e.g. "Do you think you can just dump your self serving crap on us and run away?", "Now run along and crawl back into the hole you came from."). What effect did you hope your post would have? It probably felt good to rant a bit, but who benefitted?
January 14, 2008 12:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sure, let's play nicey nice with the scumbags that have ruined this country. I think we have seen where that has gotten us. It's time to call them out and to make sure people know exactly who and what they are. This is the game being played by the DLCC and it's gotten us 8 years of Bush. I think I have had enough of that crap to last me a lifetime.
January 14, 2008 12:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Perhaps you might want to take this argument to its logical end and attack TMPCafe for inviting him to do a "Table for One" week of posts? Perhaps not patronize the site or something like that?
January 14, 2008 1:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not at all. I think Valdron has done a great job as well. He compared the writer to a child molester or crack dealer. I didn't even go that far. I think it's a great idea to have the people from the dark side come here and try and explain away their criminality. It's nice to be able to address them directly. Too bad this guy hasn't had the guts to respond.
January 14, 2008 1:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
I read it, and was not surprised to see it was written by a Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. Pinker has apparently also written a number of related books on the subject. He gets paid to complicate the issue, like his discussion of the family that eats their dog after it is accidentally run over by a car.
Pinker's opening line:
Which of the following people would you say is the most admirable: Mother Teresa, Bill Gates or Norman Borlaug?
Pinker turns morality into an American Idol where readers get to pick their 'admirable' person, and he sets up the rest of the piece to smokescreen the issue of individual responsiblity. Those who Mother Teresa serves have no where else to turn, and she did what she could to help comfort them. Gates or Borlaug or anyone else aren't going to show up for these folks. The contributions of the latter two are huge and it merely points up the fact that each moral individual should do what they can to improve the human condition.
January 14, 2008 1:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just like Einstein was paid to complicate our nice, clean Newtonian physics. Obfuscating bastard...
First off, the Gates example is sort of a red herring. Most of the piece tries to come up with a set of evolved drives, which confer selective advantage, and which could underlie morality. But if you're a utilitarian, it's hard to come up with a story where, if Gates manages to eradicate Tuberculosis or AIDS, Mother Teresa does more good (though see Mike7Woodson's reply for one possible approach). Do the Calcutta lepers have fewer places to turn than the subsistence farmers dying in central Africa? Is someone's life worth more if they are more isolated?
The example with eating the dog, like the Gates/Teresa question, is an attempt to query moral intuitions: most people believe certain things are right or wrong, but when pressed, can't explain why. Moral philosophers often start with these intuitions, and try to come up with a coherent system that can explain them.
January 15, 2008 10:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
I read the article and from my perspective, here are some of Pinker's opening illusions, even though he has other points worth reading later in the piece (7 or so pages):
*that Gates inspires those who hold corrupt control over so many third world nations to change their ways because he puts his money into disease control in same..
*he misses the fact that Mother Teresa is an example to billions of people worldwise who can imitate her, but not Gates or Borlaugh. She is a woman with very little who gave of herself to help others, and because of this, billions of people the same or better off than her can imitate her and by force of numbers, do more than Bill Gates has done to sustain long term change;
*he is part of the rationalist / secularist effort that discounts moral example and actually fights against it, then criticizes it after having degraded its image with news articles and propaganda such as this(this is really an elitist aggrandizement argument disguised as a rational comparison of charitable efforts);
*few have the wealth or expertise of Gates or Borlaug that they may imitate them, however, nearly everyone could imitate Mother Teresa in some fashion, from pauper to tycoon, and that would change the face of power worldwide;
January 14, 2008 6:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Odd that I find myself defending Bill Gates... But if some of his Gates Foundation efforts pan out, he could do an amazing amount of good and relatively little harm. Think about it: Microsoft makes its money from the "Windows tax," a $100-or-so tax on people who are rich enough to buy computers. Some of this money is distributed sideways or upwards, to stockholders and employees. But a lot of it is concentrated, then redirected into efforts to help the worst off in education, disease prevention, etc. It's the exact opposite of a company like Wal-Mart, which screws the poor to feed the rich. I may not like Microsoft's software or anti-competitive practices, but I do appreciate its redistributive effects.
I'm very skeptical of the possibility that many people will follow moral examples. Just look at the millions who sit in churches every week and listen to the Gospel, only to pray for new fishing rods, then go back meekly to their jobs and Horatio Alger delusions on Monday. Sure, hundreds of thousands marched with King and Gandhi, but they all returned to their homes soon after the leader was gone. The power of example just isn't strong enough to change much of anything.
January 15, 2008 10:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
My point wasn't to reduce Bill Gates' or Borlaug's contributions. However, to have a contrarian angle the piece falsely reduced Mother Teresa's contribution and falsely compared it. The false can include failure to include crucial angles and information.
The power of example could only be studied if you were able to wave a wand and eliminate it so that you could see the difference. Watch "It's a Wonderful Life" again or for the first time and consider the chief principle recognized there. It is life changing.
Another good film I saw recently with a similar principle: "Peaceful Warrior."
You cannot make the ill-conclusions about the others in church every Sunday. You cannot know what they do, what noble things. Who they donate to, or how they do wrong, if so. Think of yourself. Many people could look at you without knowing you and judge you as yet another spoiled American, doing nothing for others and consuming for self and opining away. How would they know if you did good? And if you announced it, it would take something away from it.
January 15, 2008 7:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'll have to read that part again, but I didn't read it as deliberately contrarian, or as denigrating MT's contributions. Rather, Pinker was just making the point that our evaluations of moral worth don't always correspond to the amount of suffering someone's actions relieve. The whole example was sort of tangential anyways.
I've certainly heard of "It's a Wonderful Life," but haven't seen it -- I'll add it to the queue. I think I prefer the life-changing principle in "Life is Beautiful," though: you can't change institutional cruelty and inhumanity, but you can still laugh.
I can't make conclusions about large numbers of individual church-goers. But given the large number of people calling themselves Christian and the small number of good deeds performed, I can do the math. And the high-profile examples of recently-indicted Republicans seem to support the few that even Christ's example has much less power than money and the promise of golf.
But enough of my doing nothing for others and opining away. Time to go back to turning the gerbil wheel.
January 16, 2008 12:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
I dunno. I think that you underestimate the power of inspiration and setting a good example.
Mother Theresa doesn't have to inspire *everyone* to emulate her in every way all the time. The result would be a world of Mother Theresa's and that would be no fun.
But if Mother Theresa inspires a few people to make similar levels of sacrifice and commitment, inspires some people to make some kind of committment, or inspires a lot of people to do something nice once in a while, well, I think that makes a difference.
It's fashionable to see the world in bleak terms. But cynicism aside, there are large and generally disrespected portions of the population that contribute as best they can, whether its from volunteering at soup kitchens, donating to food banks, or simply contributing time or money in some way.
There are a great many charitable and cultural organizations which are extremely dependent on the contributions of volunteers... often poor, working or middle class volunteers who don't get charitable tax deductible receipts, sit on boards, get praised in newspapers etc. They do it because they feel that this is worthy
Not all of them are inspired by Mother Theresa. Yet some of them are. Undoubtedly, the example of Mother Theresa inspires some youths to become involved.
If so, that's a good thing.
January 16, 2008 1:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Life is Beautiful" was Viktor Frankl with humor at the movies. A great film for young, historically detached generations to see.
I don't think you can do the math. You have no earthly idea what good deeds are done in a day. If you did the math, I'd quote Benjamin Disraeli on stats anyhow.
January 16, 2008 4:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
I know there's been a lot of work done in psychology on how people will dramatically change their behavior in the right environment (e.g. Stanford prison experiment) or with the right peers (e.g. Milgram experiment). But I don't know of work on how long these effects last once the person is back in his normal environment, or what fraction of people are affected. I'm sure there is some, but I'm not a psychologist, and it's hard to say much beyond "is not" or "is too" about the effects of exemplars without some real data.
...and I'd just have to quote Stalin back at you on statistics.
January 16, 2008 6:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think your honesty here is generous and useful.
I still prefer to believe that most Americans who become campaign managers want to win fair and square-- no matter which party they work for.
"Campaign managers and consultants, in both U.S. political parties, are hired to win. Period."
Yeah…and sometimes when you win, you really lose…and sometime when you win, everyone loses.
It bothers me when people are so willing to quit on themselves and assume they and their candidates aren't good enough to win by playing fair. Even if others cheat, effective legal strategies get overlooked when people are so busy trying to scam the system.
And I guess if morality doesn’t count, that's a little too scary for me. An extreme version of that playing out would be someplace like Saddam’s Iraq. Saddam effectively “won” all his elections by a race to the bottom that was too low for all opponents. But hey, he’ll definitely be in the history books with a special distinction.
So when someone interferes with fair and legal elections...well, "win" what? How long does that satisfaction last--if ever?
"...there are too many inside-the-Beltway types ahead of me fooling themselves that they are Ward and Cliff"
I think these types know exactly what they are, and they must also know what they are not. Maybe one day they will get a little vision and find something useful to do.
January 14, 2008 11:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
One of the most disturbing parts of his screed was his offhand conclusion that amorality was not simply for election campaigns, but for every aspect of the political process.
Karl Rove Government, need I say more.
January 14, 2008 1:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Indeed.
January 14, 2008 6:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
The RNC lied to you if it implied that the law has bright lines. The most used phrase in a lawyer's dictionary is "it depends," because most of law is a muddle, with competing interests, competing rules and competing tests. Morality is one of those interests, and you ignore morality at your peril. If you don't believe me, ask the "reasonable man."
January 14, 2008 11:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
There's nothing in this guy's existence that hasn't already been covered:
"I was only following orders"
Low end operatives such as yourself, sitting at the feet of the masters of the RNC- Segretti and Rove- always drink the kool-aid and justify their hangover the same way. Don't blame me, I'm just a victim of this system (that got caught).
"HAVE YOU NO DECENCY, SIR? AT LONG LAST,
HAVE YOU LEFT NO SENSE OF DECENCY?"
When your ratfucking escapades distort and prevent the political system that is our right from functioning, you should be tarred, feathered, and sent to Pakistan to learn just how "slippery" a slope can get when your kind interferes with the process.
Alphonse ( Al ) Kada
Iranians are fighting the Americans in Iraq so they don't have to fight them on the streets of Tehran
January 14, 2008 12:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
and
Cry me a river, Raymond. Where was the compassion when
As it happens, in these troubled times, compassion is not a luxury to be squandered on convicted felons, particularly unrepentant ones such as yourself.
Noel
January 14, 2008 1:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Republican Political Culture is toxic. It often starts with cheating in college politics. There was recently an example at the University of Michigan where two young individuals hacked a computer site so that the votes of a progressive party could not be counted for student government. Some of the Nixon operatives started in the same way.
This needs to change. Allen Raymond seems to have gotten caught up in that culture.
What I hear him saying is I have a moral compass I just was not using it. It stunned me when the Judge said I should have been using it. As proof he offers that when the Federal Government came calling his respect for authority -- to use Pinker's term -- kicked in and Raymond did the moral thing --
told the complete truth.
An alternative reading is that morality to him meant not whether you are behaving fairly but rather whether or not the Government should be peering in your bedroom as the Religious Right suggests. So his first reaction to the Judge's question about his moral compass was that has nothing to do with it.
The question is why was his moral compass (in the acting fairly sense) disabled in the first place? Although many of the Republicans act like psychopaths I find myself unable to believe that all of them are. So, I will offer several hypotheses.
1."With so much at stake, morality was not a luxury to be afforded candidates or their staff." --- translation -- I can flip that train switch without a qualm because so much is at stake. Any body would lie to thwart Hitler -- if you can convince people that equivalent stakes are at issue almost anything goes.
2. A belief that people get what they deserve -- if people are suffering it is because they did something bad. So nothing ought to be done to alleviate the situation.
3. A lack of ability to imagine oneself in the other guy's shoes.
So here is Raymond -- he is about less government and although he enables them has contempt for the Religious Right but does think of America as a Christian nation. (Ever hear of the phrase hired gun not to mention contract killer? -- just what could you be hired to do?)
Now he finds himself in prison: something bad has happened to him and he knows that he is not a bad person so that theory goes out the window. He thought we were a Christian nation but how he and his fellows are being treated is not like any Christianity he ever heard of. So now he thinks that some compassion ought to be legislated into government. But he still warns us about electing moralists of the stripe he is accustomed to. I am in complete accord with that warning.
January 14, 2008 1:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not sure that this is in fact evidence that he has a moral compass at all.
Two things come to mind here:
One is that he was pretty much caught red handed. There was no way for him to lie, evade or otherwise dodge. Well, in that case, no credit for telling the truth. And its not evidence of a moral compass.
Second, this reminds me of a bizarre form of bragging I've seen from particularly arrogant criminals. Essentially, the truly arrogant criminal has no respect for the law and believes it incapable of catching him or containing him. But then, here he is, caught in the clutches of the law. How is this possible? "I did it to myself." The law could not catch him, he undid himself. In claiming that his conviction came from unctiously telling the truth, he sets himself above authority.
Really, this guy's thought processes really are no different from a child molester or a crack dealer. The similarity goes deep, and it goes a lot further than just being a felon.
January 14, 2008 1:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Is this guy making any money off of this book? Isn't it illegal for a convicted felon to make money off of his criminal activities? Or is this like the new OJ Simpson book - sort of an "if I wanted to run a corrupt campaign, this is what I'd do"?
January 14, 2008 1:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
As another one of the compassionate types, I thought I caught a hint of some cleverly disguised self deprecating humor lurking in between Raymond's abuses of the 'moral' word. As he is obviously not unknown to Google, a couple of quick cruises through Boston.com, the Muckrakers and abcnews.com provided some more info.
Turns out that after pleading guilty without making excuses, he did tell the Judge he knew he had done a bad thing and served 3 months in jail last year. And as Paul Kiel observed, there are some things worse than jail.
Another part Raymond did not touch on in his post to us was the part where before he went to jail, he spent a fair amount of involuntary time under the wheels of the GOP bus. I don't know how shocked he was, but most of us won't be a bit surprised to learn that they then turned around and blamed him for "getting run over."
There's more, but it's his Table for One.
If I think too much about the actual crime, I get pissed off all over again. Since there's no way of changing history (unless you're Jonah Goldberg), I just want to learn what I can about the dirty tricks, and hope that some current College Republicans and other potential R-thugs will hear his message, including the part about the bus. While hunting down the story, I also dropped by and bought his book online. It has great reviews and should be here in a few days.
"To save your world you asked this man to die; Would this man, could he see you now, ask why?" W.H. Auden
January 14, 2008 2:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you for offering up a defense, however mild, of a man who many, including myself see as indefensible.
In my own professional working life, I've had occasion through different forums, as prosecutor, defense council, representing child and family services, and working with various social and rehabilitative agencies, to deal with habitual criminals and to become quite familiar with their rationalizations and pattern of thinking.
So when I say that there's not a lot of difference between this guy and crack dealers and child molesters, what I'm saying is that I've had ample opportunity to see and listen to how crack dealers and child molesters conduct, rationalise and justify their behaviour, and this is just more of the same.
That said, there's plenty of crack dealers and child molesters who are superficially nice guys with a decent sense of humour.
One recurrent feature of criminal types, is that they're always shocked when it turns on them. They're happy to game the system, sell out their friends, or otherwise go their merry mayhemesque way. But when its *them* being thrown under a bus... well, its an outrage and payback is in order.
January 14, 2008 2:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
'Saddam was systematically gaming the system...'
George W. Bush in 2004. Kinda makes Saddam like a Republican.
January 14, 2008 3:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe it's me, but isn't this what we have all been talking about here over the past few years? We all knew Karl Rove Government (KRG) was not just confined to KR, that it was rampant through out the entire party. What we heard today is just more verification.
I trust your judgments, Valdron, but I get the feeling that Raymond is intentionally choosing his words to provoke outrage and get his point across about how corrupt the political system really is. And there is this bigger picture where what he is saying is not just about him.
After the outrage, this seems like what we need to be listening to and learning from. This is the part where we go from one man's morality to what feels like a nation in jeopardy.
Someone further down the thread mentioned the College Republicans. In case anyone has forgotten or didn't know, Karl Rove, Jack Abramoff, Ralph Reed and Grover Norquist were all chairmen of the College Republicans. The latest president of the Young Republican National Federation, Glenn Murphy, had to resign last August, one month after he was elected, because of his arrest for sexually assaulting and performing oral sex on a 22 year old man that was sleeping. Until his arrest, the national GOP had considered him to be one of their "rising stars," apparently unconcerned that Murphy was accused of committing a very similar act on another man back in 1998.
If they manage to not get caught, young Republicans obviously study hard for their roles in the Republican leadership. I think we should pay attention.
"To save your world you asked this man to die; Would this man, could he see you now, ask why?" W.H. Auden
January 14, 2008 6:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
It would be wonderful if any of the vitriolic self-righteous folks screaming at Raymond read his book.Then they would realize he is not excusing himself or saying they all do it. In fact, in his book he says that the Dems aren't even Junior Varsity in the dirty tricks department.
I expected to dislike the book and the messgender, but found that not to be so. The book is witty and engaging .
Also, it seems disengenous for anyone to pretend that there is no difference between legality and morality. Many immporal things are perfectly legal and some moral things are illegal - they are not the same. That's mainly the point allen in making.
January 14, 2008 3:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't particularly consider myself vitriolic or self righteous. Merely blunt. Any criminal lawyer will telly ou that there are two kinds of people in the Justice system - criminals and people who commit criminal acts. The distinction may be arbitrary, but there is a real distinction. Criminals exhibit a series of perspectives - viewpoints, rationalizations, attitudes, etc., that are remarkably consistent and which make them prone to committing crimes, and often susceptible to being caught.
I've met thieves, convenience store robbers, rapists, pimps, scam artists and the like. Deep down, this guy isn't especially different. He's a criminal. He's not a guy who simply happened to commit a criminal act.
As to whether he has a sense of humour, whether he is charming, honest, self-effacing, whether the book is witty and insightful... criminals can be all those things, and still dangers to themselves and the community.
There is a difference between legality and morality. Criminals often draw that difference, to explain how, despite their illegality, they are actually highly moral on some personal level. But relatively few go so far as to announce a complete disregard for any morality whatsoever.
Put it this way. A crack dealer might well justify his existence to himself with the moral position that he will not sell crack to five year olds. In Raymond's view, the only barrier to the electoral campaign version of selling crack to five year olds is whether there's a law against it, and whether there's any safe way to 'taunt' the law.
All I'm saying is, and all I have been saying is, let's have no illusions as to what this guy is.
January 14, 2008 4:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Criminals exhibit a series of perspectives - viewpoints, rationalizations, attitudes, etc., that are remarkably consistent and which make them prone to committing crimes, and often susceptible to being caught.
Oh hell yes.
Mr. Raymond is a sociopath, and I find myself not at all surprised that he has entered our criminal justice system on the wrong side of the bars. He is actually committing another wrong, (which would be in fact, illegal in, say California)by profiting from his crime, thus demonstrating my point, and the point of others that he is a sociopath.
Here's the difference--Valdron, and I, and others here are supposed to calm our hearshest judgement from this thief of democracy because he is charming and witty?
How odd.
Since he's here to discuss his book, I cannot possibly see how that would exclude a discussion of the ramifications of the criminal events which lead him to write the book. And since he continues down the road of sociopathic non-conscience, it can hardly come as a shock to anyone that the tone would be shrill. The subversion of democracy was great, insofar as the intent was great. It was organized, and it was deliberate. That is was incompetent is of no matter.
I find myself thinking about the requirements of the conspiracy statutes here. One's guilt in that crime does not depend on the success or failure of the criminal enterprise, but in the offense to decent, right-thinking folks that two or more individuals should get together for the sole purpose of planning a criminal act. It's such a total affront and subversion of all of the things that are both implicit and explicit the Rule of Law, that it should and is punishable by law.
I find little difference between that level of affront to decency, and the affront that the same criminal(s) should then go out and profit for the same crime for which decent people found him(them) guilty.
January 15, 2008 12:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
Mr. Raymond,
You are apparently unaware of the fact that the words "morals" and "ethics" are synonyms. So, no, morality is not the exclusive province of religion. Didn't you take Philosophy 101?
No wonder you didn't understand the judge.
Here's the definition from the online version of the "American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language", which includes no reference to religion.
1. Of or concerned with the judgment of the goodness or badness of human action and character: moral scrutiny; a moral quandary.
2. Teaching or exhibiting goodness or correctness of character and behavior: a moral lesson.
3. Conforming to standards of what is right or just in behavior; virtuous: a moral life.
4. Arising from conscience or the sense of right and wrong: a moral obligation.
5. Having psychological rather than physical or tangible effects: a moral victory; moral support.
6. Based on strong likelihood or firm conviction, rather than on the actual evidence: a moral certainty.
Synonyms - moral, ethical, virtuous, righteous
No wonder you ended up in jail.
Strive for the ideal, but deal with what's real.
January 14, 2008 3:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Turnow,
I disagree with you that morality and ethics are synonymous. There's an important distinction between them.
Morality is "a doctrine or system of moral conduct" and "conformity to the ideals of right human contact."* Ethics is "the discipline dealing with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation."
Please note that the definition of morality not only is a doctrine of conduct, it is a conformity to that conduct that implies an internalization or belief in the concept. Ethics defines what is good or bad and puts it in a social context; that is, it deals with behavior rather than belief.
I see that Mr. Raymond, by referencing morality rather than ethics, is giving himself an out for how he behaved in his work for the Republican party. I agree with him that morality has no place in the kind of work he did for the political campaign, because belief in "the ideals of right human contact" is a very personal thing.
However, ethics--ethical behavior--is a social contract among people that is necessary for civilization to continue. Whether you want to go along with Aristotle, Kant, or Utilitarians, ethics is what allows us to get through life with a reasonable expectation that others' behavior will not be to our detriment, if not for our benefit.
Ethics should have featured prominently in Mr. Raymond's conduct, and it did not. He knew the harm that would result from his actions, and he went through with them anyway. He does not have to believe that "right human contact" is important; he need only see that the society in which he lives expects ethical behavior from him and others.
His is a cynical nature, I believe, that sets his values according to the benefit he can receive at a given time. Ethics does not allow for this fluid kind of opportunism, nor for his specious rationalizations and clear disavowal of responsibil