Congressional Subpoenas: The Case of the Clintons

The rule of law is absolutely essential to a representative democracy being able to endure even as strong personalities in public office may seek to bend or even dismiss law for their own purposes. The notion that anyone subject to law gets a pass according to one’s own discretion and power is toxic to a republic being regarded as fair. Just as everyone has a right to due process in legal proceedings in the U.S., no one is above the law there. This applies to former presidents and secretaries of state, and thus to Bill and Hillary Clinton. Their written statement in refusing to recognize a Congressional subpoena as valid—a presumptuous stunt to be sure—reveals that they held the presumption of being able to decide whether a law to which they were subject was valid. This presumption could also be seen when Bill Clinton occupied the White House, for he deliberately lied under oath, “I did not have sexual relations with” Monika Lewinski even though she had performed oral sex with him in the Oval Office when she was a White House intern. My point is that the underlying pattern is clear with respect to a lack of regard for law itself (even though both Clintons went to Yale’s law school) and the presumption of setting oneself in the position of invalidating law to which one is subject. That Bill Clinton was no punished with incarceration in the 1990s was unfortunate even for him and his wife as they were not afforded the opportunity to learn a lesson.

On January 21, 2026, members of the Republican group in the U.S. House of Representatives began the process “to hold former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary in contempt of Congress” because the couple had repeatedly refused to honor a Congressional subpoena to testify on the Epstein sex-girls racket.[1] Photographic evidence that Bill had been in contact with Epstein had been made public, and members of the House had questions for the Clintons regarding what they may have known of Epstein’s crimes. Even though the demand for testimony sounds reasonable enough, Rep. James Comer, the chairman of the relevant committee, had said at the start of a hearing in which the Clinton’s attendance was required that the Clintons had responded not with “cooperation but defiance.”[2] Such a blatant response to a Congressional subpoena is astonishing because, as Comer said, “Subpoenas are not mere suggestions, they carry the force of law and require compliance.”[3] The Clintons contended that the subpoenas were “invalid because they do not serve any legislative purpose.”[4] But it is not for subpoenaed people called to testify to assess whether any such purpose is being served, for otherwise anyone could disregard a Congressional subpoena simply by declaring there to be no legislative purpose.

In his ethical theory, Kant argues that if universalizing a maxim results in a contradiction, such a maxim is unethical.  For example, if no one were to tell the truth, no one would believe anyone else’s truth-claims and so making such claims would not make any sense. Universalizing the maxim that it is ok to lie would result in no claims being made. Similarly, were everyone to act on the maxim, a person subject to a Congressional subpoena can determine the validity of said subpoena and act on that determination, it would not make sense for Congress to issue subpoenas because none would be honored. Universalizing that maxim results in the absurd, so that maxim is unethical.

Another formulation of Kant’s ethical theory holds that rational beings should be treated not merely as one’s means, but also as ends in themselves. In presuming that the committee members were merely playing political games in issuing the subpoenas and dismissing them, the Clintons were treating the members as means only (to the Clinton’s own ends) rather than as ends in themselves worthy of respect by virtue of being rational beings. Why worthy of respect?  Because to Kant, it is by the use of reason that we assign value in the world, so reason itself must have absolute value and thus be worthy of respect. To Kant, the formulations of his Categorical Imperative have the necessity that law does.

It is such necessity, both in law itself and in ethical principles, according to Kant, that the Clintons repeatedly and conveniently overlooked or dismissed outright, and with impunity. It is significant, therefore, that being in contempt of a Congressional subpoena can carry time in prison. There is a good reason for that, so I submit that the criminal charges should be automatic rather than depend on a majority-vote in the House chamber. Obviating accountability by means of political deals does no favor to the guilty in terms of lessons learned, and no favor to an institution that looks weak if its subpoenas can be ignored with impunity. Impunity for some and jail for the rest is no way to run a republic that is based on the rule of law.

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1. Stephen Groves and Matt Brown, “House Republicans Begin Push to Hold the Clintons in Contempt of Congress Over the Epstein Probe,” APnews.com, January 21, 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.

The E.U. on Ukraine: On the Human, All Too Human

On August 17, 2025, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with Ursula von der Leyen, president of the E.U., as a precursor to both of them meeting with Don Trump, president of the U.S. on ending Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. President Von der Leyen had decided to accompany Zelensky to Washington in part to potentially play interference should the U.S. president again publicly berate Zelensky to his face and in part to protect Zelensky should Trump’s position/pressure be too pro-Russia (i.e., pro-Putin). To virtually all Europeans and to many Americans, Trump’s verbal outburst at Zelensky in the Oval Office had been shocking, especially as it seemed to be pre-meditated and orchestrated. Taking emotional advantage of the head of a state being invaded by the empire-scale Russia can assuredly be reckoned as being a bad host, and even low class for the president of the empire-scale United States. International relations do indeed contain a very human element, and in fact leaving it out of an analysis of an international situation is nothing short of negligent.

The full essay is at "The E.U. on Ukraine."

National Absurditas

Words can be stretched, or even abused, in the service of a self-serving ideology that is utterly unfair to other people as well as stubborn facts. Nietzsche theorized that ideas are the stuff of instinctual urges tussling for supremacy in the human mind. Against Kant’s love of the fixed laws of reason for their own sake, I submit that Nietzsche’s tussle of ideas can bend even the laws of reason, like the gravity of large masses can bend space (and thus light) and time. The basic framework of the universe is not static. Neither, I believe, are the rules of reason, and reasoning itself. Intense power, such as that of an ideology, can warp both the basic framework and process of reason. This can explain why ideologues can be seen by others to suffer from cognitive dissidence: holding two contradictory beliefs at the same time. A defense mechanism of ideology can block awareness of one of the two. Self-serving applications of the word, national, is a case in point.

An article touting small towns in the U.S. as worthy tourist attractions stresses the importance of “small towns and communities that have long formed the backbone of the nation.”[1] The article features the best small town in every U.S. state, though the importance of small towns is in terms of the nation. The gravity of so much consolidated power at the level of the Union may be behind the bending of the spotlight from the state to the federal level. The towns were selected on the state level and yet they form the backbone of the nation. Cognitive dissidence is present in the tension here. Indeed, the term national can apply to the states, as the U.S., like the E.U., sports a federal system of dual sovereignty. In both empire-level unions[2], the member-states have retained some governmental sovereignty as well as any residual not delegated to the federal level. Also in both unions, cultural and even political-ideological differences exist from state to state. The U.S. state of Vermont differs significantly from the state of Kansas, for example. The E.U. state of Denmark differs significantly from the state of Spain. An empire must have many culturally distinct states (or kingdoms, historically).

It follows that the United Kingdom is not itself an empire. Formerly an empire and later a state in the E.U., the UK post-secession (not post-divorce, as the UK and the E.U. are not equivalent because the UK was a state in the E.U.). Culturally, the Scottish, Welsh, and English regions (and Northern Ireland, whose residents tend to identify themselves as English culturally) are much more similar than are the E.U. states of Greece and Sweden. In fact, were the regions of the UK really nations, they would have been separate E.U. states. Those regions only have delegated power in the UK, and are thus not semi-sovereign, so the regions are not nations. Indeed, the British Parliament could stop the Scottish region, for example, from even applying for E.U. statehood, whether before or after the secession.

Even so, the British refer to their regions as nations. For example, the Church of Scotland “is a Presbyterian church and recognizes only Jesus Christ as ‘King and Head of the Church’,” according to the Royal Family’s website.[3] If this sounds familiar, this may be because Israel before the kings recognized Yahweh as its sole ruler (assuming this is a historical fact used in the faith narrative). Yet someone had to interpret Yahweh’s will. Similarly, according to CNN, the Scottish Church is “entirely self-governing, represented at the local level by ‘kirk sessions’ and at a national level by the General Assembly.”[4] The Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland is a human being. The Queen annually appoints someone to “maintain the relationship between the State and the Church,” according to the Royal website in early 2020.[5] Although occupants have been from the Scottish region, members of the royal family have also been appointed. In January 2020, the Queen appointed her grandson, William. Hence the Crown is over the Church of Scotland, albeit not as explicitly as in the case of the Church of England. This contradicts the self-governing plank of the Scottish Church, and, more to the point, the claim that the General Assembly is on “a national level,” meaning that Scotland is a nation.

Here, cognitive dissidence and a warping not only of the word national, but also of reasoning itself, can be seen. In the relation between Church and State, the latter refers here to the UK rather than Scotland, and yet the latter is “a national level.” The warping of reasoning itself and the law of reason that mandates that equivalents are equivalent are evident in the further contention that the semi-sovereign U.S. states are not nations while Scotland is. Two contradictory uses of the same word violate the logic of equivalence and invoke cognitive dissidence. In short, the British should not apply national to both Scotland and the United States. That this is done suggests the underlying presence of a questionable motive.  

Moreover, Europeans and even Americans typically treat an E.U. state as equivalent to the entire American union rather than to a member-state therein.[6] I suspect that few Americans even realize how the language is being used, and why. In the case of the Europeans, the ideology seems to involve a self-serving overstatement of the importance of a former or current E.U. state and a diminishment of an empire-level union elsewhere. Power can fuel both the self-aggrandizement and passive aggression. In fact, the latter is definitely present in angry reactions against the few people who try to restore the application of equivalence as if doing so is irrational and haughty! Such is the power of ideological defense-mechanisms manifesting in the political domain.

Although I resist the linguistic reductionism in 20^th century analytical philosophy (e.g., Wittgenstein’s claim that no awareness of an object can precede a word being given to that object), I readily admit that human beings can use language in order to get pleasure from having more power. The fixity of the rules of grammar and of the definitions of words can be mere parchment constraints up against the instinctual urge for power.

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[1] Lissa Poirot, “Every U.S. State’s Best Small Town,” Far & Wide, January 10, 2020 (accessed January 26, 2020).

[2] Skip Worden, British Colonies Forge an American Empire (2017).

[3] Amir Vera, “Queen Appoints Prince William to New Role amid Royal Shakeup,” CNN.Com, January 25, 2020.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Skip Worden, Essays on Two Federal Empires: Comparing the E.U. and U.S. (2015).

NASA and It's Contractors: The Challenger Disaster

Roger Boisjoly was a booster rocket engineer at a NASA contractor, Morton Thiokol. Boisjoly blew the whistle both within the company and to NASA regarding the danger of the rubber in the o-rings, which seal the connections in the shuttle’s rockets, being insufficiently elastic in cold weather. Although The Challenger Disaster (2019) is not a documentary, the film’s narrative, which centers on Roger, or "Adam," is oriented to understanding why the Challenger space shuttle exploded after being launched on January 28, 1986. In other words, although some names are different and the conversations are not verbatim in the film, the factors that contributed to the actual explosion are presented. In fact, the film leans too much on technical details before the disaster and legal arguments afterwards without adequate entertaining elements to make the film enjoyable. However, the film's political function in informing a mass market of why part of the government-business system was broken is valuable. In fact, this mission demonstrates that the medium of motion pictures is capable of aiding in social, political, economic, and religious awareness and education, and thus development. 

The full essay is at "The Challenger Disaster."

The U.S. Government Spying on Americans: Was It Ethical?

In early June, 2013, while Barak Obama was the U.S. president, Americans learned of the U.S. Government’s domestic surveillance program, under which the Verizon Business Network Services subsidiary had been turning over call logs “on an ongoing daily basis” to the National Security Agency[1] The order, signed by a judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in April of that year, was "lawful,” U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein contended.[2] The program analyzed time and number logs that did not include the calls’ content. According to U.S. Senator Chambliss, “All of these numbers are basically ferreted out by a computer, but if there’s a number that matches a [suspicious] number that has been dialed . . . , then that may be flagged. And they may or may not seek a court order to go further on that particular instance. But that’s the only time that this information is ever used in any kind of substantive way.”[3] Harry Reid, Majority Leader in the U.S. Senate at the time, added that the phone-data program had “worked to prevent” terrorist attacks.[4] Does it make any difference. ethically speaking, that the program had helped stop a domestic attack? Shortly after The Guardian broke the story on Verizon’s subsidiary serving corporate customers, The Wall Street Journal reported, “[T]he initiative also encompasses phone-call data” from AT&T and Sprint, as well as from Verizon itself (i.e., beyond its business subsidiary).[5] Does this revelation on the vast scale of the program make any difference ethically? Moreover, does a positive collective consequence--or the lack of a negative harm to the public good--justify forays into the privacy of a vast number of individuals? 

Not surprisingly, privacy advocates were alarmed at the sheer scope of the program. Kate Martin of the Center for National Security Studies, a civil liberties advocacy group, said that “absent some explanation I haven’t thought of, this looks like the largest assault on privacy since the N.S.A. wiretapped Americans in clear violation of the law” under the Bush administration.[6] Her statement raises the question of whether the fact that the Obama administration had confined itself to court orders makes the program ethical.

Whereas the content of the phone conversations, including the parties’ names, were said to be not included in the trove of data turned over to the government, internet companies had been providing the contents of emails, online chats, Facebook accounts, Skype video calls, and web searches to the government as per court orders (i.e., not through direct access).[7] Does the inclusion of content make any difference, ethically speaking? Applying a few ethical theories may get us closer to some answers. 

                        I. Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism maintains that conduct is ethical if it provides the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. This can be in terms of pleasure over pain or benefits over costs. In terms of phone records, the question is whether the harm from attacks that are prevented by the program outweighs the harm from the loss of privacy. Put another way, do the benefits of prevented attacks exceed the costs in terms of privacy that is lost?
That at least one attack had already been prevented indicates that benefits do indeed exist—but for how many people (saved)? Furthermore, how grave would the attacks have been? Attacks can vary in their severity and breadth of harm. The reduction in the fear of a possible attack is also a benefit, and the program, once exposed, can be expected to have put that fear at ease, at least to some degree. That these factors require judgment means that different people are likely to come to different conclusions on a given issue.
On the harm or cost side, the number of people whose calls have been reported is relevant. Judgment again intrudes in the determination of the harm from the loss of privacy if the parties are not aware of it, and then if they are aware of it. That the contents of the calls are not reported suggests that the cost or harm may not exceed the program’s benefits, even though the data provided covers a great number of people. In other words, it is reasonable to conclude that the harm to them pales in comparison to the harm that would be unleashed by mass attacks were they not prevented by the program. In the twenty-first century, access to chemical weapons and nuclear bombs can translate into massive harm. Anyone having parents, a brother or sister, or a child living in a major city would likely judge that giving the government access to his or her phone log is worth the loss in privacy. In terms of utilitarianism, therefore, the phone-records government program can be regarded as ethical because it is consistent with the greatest net happiness for the greatest number. The pain prevented would likely have been severe, whereas, even though the phone-logs involve many more people, the costs in terms of loss of privacy are far less intense. In other words, saving legs and lives is a benefit so significant that the loss of some privacy of many more people would likely be less overall than the benefits overall. To be sure, weighing and relating benefits and costs both in terms of severity and the number of likely people involves considerable uncertainty. Utilitarianism is therefore often a matter of judgment rather than mathematical calculation. The value of the theory here may be in comparing the two programs.
For example, going on to the Prism program, it can be regarded as less ethical from a utilitarian standpoint because of the extent of content provided. The possibility of government “Nixonist” abuse is greater here. Further, it could be asked whether the sheer amount of content is necessary to prevent attacks. In other words, would more attacks in the works be prevented, and if so, would this increased benefit be worth the added cost in terms of privacy lost? Even though judgment again comes into play, the Prism program is likely less ethical than the phone-log program—perhaps even unethical.

            II. Kantianism

Kant argued that treating others as ends in themselves rather than only as a means is a duty owing to the value of rational nature, given that it assigns values to things. The people whose calls are being reported are in one sense being used, but it is also possible that they or their loved ones could be saved from being killed or wounded as a result of the program. The more people whose calls are being reported, the stronger is the case that they themselves are being protected, and thus treated not merely as means, but also as ends in themselves. That three major phone companies have been submitting the logs suggests that the people can be regarded as the point of the program, rather than only as the means. The program can thus be viewed as ethical in Kantian terms.
In regard to the Prism program, the inclusion of so much content makes it easier to argue that the people are being used. At the same time, that so much from the internet is included means that more people are included. The assertion that the people harmed are also those being protected is thus stronger. However, it is also true that a lower proportion of those whose data is being mined would likely be those saved from the prevented attacks. A person could feel uncomfortable knowing that government employees could be reading his or her emails and tweets as well as looking at his or her Facebook pictures even though it is unlikely that he or she, living in the woods in Idaho, would ever be a victim of a terrorist attack. Such a person would rightly feel used for the sake of others’ safety.
For the Prism program to be ethical under Kantian ethics, one would be on more solid ground asserting that “the People” are being used and protected. As a government policy oriented to the general welfare, the program may thus be ethical. Even so, particular individuals could claim that they are being used.  

                        III. Social Contract: Rights and Obligations

Even if people have not sat down in the state of nature to agree to a social contract as a basis for a society, the balance of rights and obligations can be understood in terms of a contract. The rights and obligations are both for the good of the people. The question for us regarding the phone program is whether the obligation to allow one’s calls to be noted and used secretly by a government agency would be viewed by actual or hypothetical contract negotiators as going too far in encroaching on the right to privacy. That is, the question is whether people in the state of nature would agree to giving up that right in exchange for being (or feeling) protected. Because the contents of the calls and the names of the callers are not part of the obligation, people in the state of nature could reasonably agree to it in exchange for feeling or actually being protected.
Regarding the Prism program, people devising a social contract would be less likely to agree to provide their emails, web-searches, blogs, tweets, and Facebook contents in exchange for feeling or being more secure in a society. From a social contract perspective, the Prism program can be regarded as unethical. This approach assumes that the right to privacy is created in the making of a social contract, rather than being a natural right. If the right is “hardwired” into human beings, we could not simply “trade it in” without an enduring psychological cost.

                        IV. Natural Rights

That privacy is typically subject to questions of how much it benefits us relative to how much the loss of privacy benefits society suggests that the right is not natural. However, when a person’s privacy is not respected, such as by someone demanding personal information, it is natural to react in anger—to have what Hume calls a sentiment of disapprobation. Hume claimed this emotional reaction is the moral judgment itself that some conduct is unethical. In other words, that we react rather instinctually to someone who presumes access to personal information or ignores personal space suggests that the right to privacy stems from a natural right built into being constituted as a human being. From this basis, both programs can be regarded as unethical—the Prism program being even more unethical than the phone program because of the additional contents being provided to the government.
That just suspecting that a stranger might be reading one’s personal email or seeing a personal photo from Facebook would make the typical person cringe suggests that something unethical is going on—that the person is being violated in a way that cannot be justified. As the news reports of the programs were being digested by the American people, a collective negative emotional reaction was palpable with such immediacy that it must have been natural, and thus triggered by the violation of a natural right. Even people who reasoned that security justifies the loss of privacy doubtlessly had the emotional reaction too. From this perspective, it can be predicted that the more privacy, or access to that which the person regards as person, is compromised, the more psychological harm to the person is incurred as a result. A person adopting the social-contract approach might agree to trade some privacy for security, but the natural right theory would stress the psychological cost and thus be much less inclined to “trade” the right.

In conclusion, whether or not the phone and Prism programs were unethical depends on not only judgment and which factors are included, but also the particular ethical theory being used. It is unlikely that a definite ethical “answer” can be obtained or even exists unless the breach of privacy was so grave (i.e., harmful to the individuals being spied on) that utilitarianism and natural rights would become inflamed. Even so, that the ethical theories analyzed above do not give the same answer suggests that at least some ethicists would still object. From my own analysis above, two factors strike me as decisive: how personal the information that being provided (and how much) is, and how useful a given amount of information is in preventing attacks. A trade-off is implied here, and it in turn is related to the long-standing trade-off between privacy and security, or, moreover, rights and related harms of individuals and the public good. Surely at some point, it becomes unethical to extract too much from certain individuals--especially if they are many--for the public good. Yet we should not be hoodwinked into thinking that all ethical theories speak with the same voice. This grayness can be expected to diminish as the harm increases. Also, the grayness may give way only on a gradual slippery slope, and thus not be detectable either by the general public. For example, when the Nazis invaded The Netherlands, Jews there were subject to a gradual tightening (i.e., adding) of restrictions--the purpose of the "bit by bit" approach was doubtless so the Jews would not raise an uproar, for who would for a slight change? Spying on citizens by the U.S. Government probably also increased by small iterations, each of which, on its own, could easily be justified in governmental circles. Herein lies a danger to liberty even in a democracy.  

1. Charlie Savage and Edward Wyatt, “U.S. Is Secretly Collecting Records of Verizon Calls,” The New York Times, June 5, 2013.

2. Charlie Savage and Edward Wyatt, “U.S. Maintains Vast Database of Phone Calls, Lawmakers Say,” The New York Times, June 5, 2013.

3. Ibid.

4. Siobhan Gorman, Evan Perez, and Janet Hook, “U.S. Collects Vast Data Trove,” The Wall Street Journal, June 7, 2013.

5. Ibid.

6. Charlie Savage and Edward Wyatt, “U.S. Is Secretly Collecting Records of Verizon Calls,” The New York Times, June 5, 2013.

7. Siobhan Gorman, Evan Perez, and Janet Hook, “U.S. Collects Vast Data Trove,” The Wall Street Journal, June 7, 2013.

Kant on the NSA Lying to Congress

James Clapper, Director of U.S. National Intelligence, told the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee in March 2013 that the National Security Agency was not gathering any type of data at all on millions, and even hundreds of millions, of Americans. After leaked documents showed that Clapper had misled the committee in stating, “There are cases where they could inadvertently perhaps collect, but not wittingly,” he issued an apology to the committee for having made the comment that was “clearly erroneous.”[1] U.S. Senator Diane Feinstein, chair of the committee, praised Clapper as an honest and direct man.[2] The discerning reader realizes the full implications of the difference between being in error and lying. To err is human, but to deliberately fabricate for the benefit of oneself or one’s group is a matter on which particular humans can and do differ morally.
Kant is especially well-known for having claimed that it is never ethical to lie. This makes Kant's ethics difficult to accept in terms of "white lies," which are told for another person's benefit rather than for selfish reasons. In terms of universalizing lying as a practice, were everyone to decide to lie on a regular basis, the truth would lose its value because no one would trust it. Lying would no longer have its intended value either, as it would be expected and therefore ignored. In other words, universalizing the maxim of lying would be self-contradictory concerning lying itself; lying universalized would involve a logical contradiction. Put another way, lying as a practice universalized would insult reason itself, and thus be unethical to any rational nature. As human beings, we have such a nature.
It is admittedly strange to think of "unethical" as being in terms of a logical contradiction being contrary to reason. It is easier to think that a logical contradiction is not possible for a being having a rational nature. Kant is saying that as we are rational beings, it is unethical for us to do something if universalizing the practice to it being done by everyone would involve a logical contradiction. Is this criterion simply an expedient method for determining whether a given practice is ethical or unethical, or was Kant really thinking of ethics differently than we think of ought? If the latter, even saying that a logical contradiction is unethical because it insults reason would introduce emotion where there is none; Kant's notion of what it means for some action to be unethical would be that reason is being used against its own rational nature.
Put in Kant's easier formulation that is much easier to understand, lying involves treating other people as one’s means only, rather than also as ends in themselves. You can still treat someone as your means, as long as you also treat him or her as an end in himself or herself too. This formulation has been likened to the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have done to you. However, I wouldn't like to be anyone's means and yet Kant permits this as long as I'm also treated as an end in myself (as a rational being). So I don't think Kant's ethic is as idealistic as is the Golden Rule.
Applying Kant to the case at hand, James Clapper either testified in ignorance or to deceive the senators. If the former, the NSA should not have sent him to testify. Either the agency was at fault for sending the wrong guy or Clapper should have known of the program but did not. If during a NSA meeting covering the program he had been daydreaming of spying on the woman living next door, he is culpable. He would have been using his boss as a means rather than also as an end in himself.
Alternatively and more likely, if Clapper knowingly deceived the committee, either on orders from the NSA or from his own will, he used the senators as means rather than also as ends in themselves. Put another way, I doubt that Clapper likes to be lied to; neither does Diane Feinstein or any of the other senators. Nor do the people of the states that those senators represent, or the general public for that matter. An agent knowingly misleading his or her principal is a particularly sordid instance of lying; not only is it selfish and inconsiderate, it is also insubordinate.
Clapper either testified in ignorance or to deceive the senators. If the former, the NSA should not have sent him to testify; the fault is not necessarily his own. However, if he knowingly deceived the committee, either on orders from the NSA or from his own will, he used the senators as means only, rather than also as ends in themselves. Therefore, whether out of ignorance or deceit, Clapper’s error or lie points to insufficient democratic accountability of the NSA to Congress. If NSA chief Gen. Keith Alexander lied to Congress in saying that the NSA could not determine how many U.S. communications were being gathered at the time when in fact the NSA was using its auditing tool Boundless Informant precisely to determine the number of such communications, a disturbing pattern rather than a single incident of faulty testimony would characterize the NSA.[3] In particular, the agency could have developed an organizational culture in which the elected representatives in Congress and even truth-telling itself are insufficiently respected and valued. Such anti-democratic values may be the underlying culprit behind what could be a cavernous hole in democratic accountability—the breach of which would of course maintain the illusion of ongoing accountability.

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1. Kimberly Dozier, “James Clapper: Answer on NSA Surveillance to Congress Was ‘Clearly Erroneous’,” The Huffington Post, July 2, 2013.2. Jeremy Peters, “Feinstein’s Support for N.S.A. Defies Liberal Critics and Repute,” The New York Times, July 1, 2013.
3. Kimberly Dozier, “Edward Snowden: NSA Lying, Collecting All Communications Into and Out of U.S.,” The Huffington Post, July 8, 2013.

Free Speech in the E.U.: Criminalizing Denials of Genocides

While the world continued to look on—like an impotent rich man who cannot afford Viagra—as a genocide was taking place in Syria (i.e., the systemic killing of a group—in this case, of pro-democracy demonstrators), France’s state senate approved a bill on January 23, 2012 criminalizing the denial of officially recognized genocides, which according to the state includes the Nazi Holocaust and the Turkish killing of Armenians beginning in 1915. In the twenty-first century, fining people and putting them in prison for not wanting to remember things so horrible evinces the same kind of nationalist thinking that had led the twentieth to be the bloodiest century. In contradistinction to that decadent century, turning a new leaf following the Arab spring in the twenty-first is a far better strategy.

Beyond the obvious matter of free speech, which admittedly is not absolute even in America, it should be asked whether law is an efficacious means of barring or changing thoughts. On the day of the vote, a study was released at the Bundestag in Berlin reporting that twenty percent of that state’s population was still anti-sematic. I don’t believe penalizing that prejudice itself (i.e., as a belief apart from any conduct) by the state’s police power forces any change at that level. At most, people would simply hide it—and how would such repression burst out in conduct? I submit it would be better simply to ignore the thoughts and concentrate on conduct.

Europe has had a tendency to codify thoughts as if they belong to the state. In America, that realm is province of the “thought police” that sprang up (as self-appointed) during the 1990s as “political correctness.”  At least with political correctness (such as in saying humankind rather than mankind, and Native American rather than American Indian), the self-appointed enforcer can be told to go to hell. The natural reaction to being accosted in such a presumptuous and pernicious way is to say precisely that which is not desired by the aggressor. Adding the police power of the state to enforce certain beliefs by penalizing others is dangerous not only for society itself, but also for individuals in terms of our quality of life free from anxiety. The over-reaching may even be immoral; it is certainly weakness.

A person may be able to control one’s own conduct more than one’s ideas or beliefs. Besides the futility of law in going after a person’s interior mental life, that domain is inherently beyond the unwanted control of another person. The French law would include up to a year in prison and a fine of about $58,000 for anyone who denies an officially-recognized genocide. Is the reach of the law limited to public speeches or published writings, or are people of France to feel anxious at private parties in their own home? In terms of general anxiety, the law could cost the state’s entire population. Is effectively adding the Turkish killings nearly a century before to the German Holocaust worth this in France? It is not as if that E.U. state borders Turkey.

Therefore, behind the 127 to 86 vote is a rather basic category mistake with respect to jurisprudence. Taking the law beyond its native domain to enforce one’s agenda using the police power of the state undercuts law itself, and thus contributes to the downfall of its legitimacy, even in its proper realm. In other words, in over-reaching, a government can wind up with even less influence over its people through even criminal law.

Additionally, a refusal to respect another’s inalienable right to have certain ideas or beliefs is to treat the rational nature (i.e., thoughts or beliefs) itself as merely a means to one’s own designs, rather than as an end in itself. According to Kant, this is immoral because of the value that is rightfully in reason because it is the assigner of value and thus has absolute value. Treating that which has essentially undefined value (as the source thereof) as having value only in so far as it fits with one’s own ideas or beliefs is wrong.

Might it be, Nietzsche would surely add, that modern moralizers are immoral rather than what we take ourselves to be? Who are the aggressors—les esprits méchants et perniceux? Might it be that human beings are far too presumptuous in what we think we know to venture into any other man’s head with impunity? Am I understood? This medicine is not meant for the weak, Nietzsche warns, who nonetheless have an uncontrollable urge to dominate. These new birds of prey are not entitled to dominate, and yet they somehow convince the strong—through thou shalt not—to be ashamed of those thoughts come out of their innate, self-confident strength. Be ashamed of who you are. The strong self-overcome their most willful instincts in order to experience the pleasure of power that naturally goes with their strength. The weak who seek to dominate, on the other hand, are driven by their instinct to overcome the resistance of others by passive aggression (owing to the weakness of the instinct, which they can’t seem to resist anyway) and cruelty (including genocides). Hitler was weak, but so too is the presumption to punish others for their beliefs in retaliation. Birds of a feather, these new birds of prey most certainly are. It is amazing they can even fly.

“By aiming at more [in pride],” Augustine proclaims in City of God (bk 14, ch.13), “a man is diminished.” Pride, by the way, is not self-confident strength, for self-overcoming is blocked by self-idolatry. Perhaps expressing the belief in over-reaching, which is an idea of the immoral and weak, should itself be punishable by a year in prison. This would probably only strengthen the belief, which in turn would weaken the believer even as he or she presumes to be more moral as a self-denying martyr. Lest the advocates of victims become ourselves victimizers (e.g., the Crusaders), it is a good policy for a general population to keep an eye on us too, for we can get quite carried away as moral zealots without realizing how we are affecting others (i.e., rational nature of others). That there have been (and will be) victims of horrible things in the world, does not give anyone the right to punish others for their thoughts or beliefs, for such intangibles are our inner castles, not to be treated like sand by pushy waves.

Fortunately, good sense prevailed and the French Constitutional Council struck down the law that would have criminalized the denial of the Armenian genocide by the Ottoman Turks. “We consider the annulment of the legislation by the Constitutional Council as a step that complies with the principles of freedom of expression and research, the rule of law and international law in France,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry said after the Council’s decision. This statement is ironic, given that the accession of Turkey into the E.U. had been held up in part out of concern in Europe that Turkey was not yet sufficiently ensconced in Western values. Perhaps it should have been asked whether France should be a state of the E.U.

Sources:

Scott Sayare and Sebnem Arsu, “Genocide Bill Angers Turks as It Passes in France,” The New York Times, January 23, 2012. 

Scott Sayare, “French Council Strikes Down Bill on Armenian Genocide Denial,” The New York Times, February 29, 2012. 

Strategic Thinking beyond the Business Plan

“When smart people came up with ideas for well-conceived business opportunities, we said go for it. As always, organizational charts, management consultants, and business plans played virtually no role in any of this. My own strategic thinking I did mostly while showering or shaving.”

—Alan C. Greenberg, former Chairman and CEO of Bear Stearns

Similarly, when I write an essay, I inevitably pass on first constructing a formal outline and go instead off of what I have worked out in ratiocinating while exercising, in transit, or showering. Freeing the mind up to search for and try out connections between ideas, and working a theory over and over—like kneeding dough or forming a clay pot on a wheel—are inconsistent with too much structure.

The human mind needs its own space to solve abstract or applied problems needing considerable thought. Subjecting the processes of theory-construction and problem-solving (“critical thinking”) to too much structure is simply not in line with the nature of the mind itself. Human reasoning, it turns out, is not a linear process that necessarily fits within the confines of a business plan or consulting diagnostic tool. Particularly if creativity and innovation are to be encouraged, mechanistic structure must succumb to organic process.

For example, I did a consulting project as part of an organizational design senior seminar that I took in college. The professor had developed a structured organizational audit—a diagnostic tool geared to detecting discrepancies between an organization chart and actual communication. As he had developed the instrument, we were naturally to rely on it in making our recommendations to the clients. I used the tool on a computer retail store and proffered recommendations from it. Because the business was family-owned and operated, I could see that the communications were in part a function of the family dynamics, which the professor’s organizational audit failed to pick up. So I asked some additional questions and made some supplemental recommendations, which the business owner/manager found quite useful—unlike those that came from the audit.

Even though the professor graded me lower for adding the recommendations, the client went so far as to call him to urge that an A be given to me for the project. From what the client told me later, the professor was perhaps too attached to his “organizational audit” tool (which he used in his own consulting practice). My orientation as a novice consultant was neither to my grade nor to the tool; rather, I wanted to help the owner/manager by proffering him insight that he could use to solve his problem. Although I cannot be sure at this point, I might have come up with my final recommendation to him on the way to a class, during a run, or even while shaving.

So I can totally understand Alan Greenberg’s aversion to organization charts, business plans and “professional” consultants. A true consultant comes from a perspective of expertise that clients do not have. For example, a consultant could be an academic or a nearly-retired practioner. In either case, the advice should be viewed as supplemental to the client’s focal situs “on the ground”—that is, consulting advice is something for a client to digest and possibly integrate with his or her larger considerations outside the range of the consultant.

Being geared to helping a client, a consultant should be able to let go of his or her “black bag” if the tools therein fall short in diagnosing the organizational dysfunction, or “illness.” I suspect that one's “gut” can come into play, effectively transcending the mechanistic tools, only if the consultant cares, because only then is he or she intrinsically oriented to the client’s situation rather than the consultant’s own bag of tricks as ends in themselves. In the end, consulting is interpersonal—helping others who are suffering from a problem. Such problems typically involving human beings, it should be no surprise if a consultant should approach them from more than one level.

Therefore, both strategic and consulting thinking ought to be accommodated in the sense of giving them some organic free range. Treating business plans, organizational charts, and diagnostic tools as ends in themselves, as if they were rational beings (i.e., Kant's kingdom of ends), is ultimately self-defeating, if not suffocating. Just as managing can sometimes be informed by simply wandering around, so too the strategic mind needs some room to roam.  

Source:

Alan C. Greenberg, The Rise and Fall of Bear Stearns (NY: Simon & Schuster, 2010)

Contradictory Comments on Health Insurance as Unethical: The Case of Newt Gingrich

Newt Gingrich said on May 15, 2011 that people should be required to buy health-insurance. He added that he would like to see the mandate implemented at the state rather than the federal level. These comments unleashed a torrent of criticism from Republicans, so the former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives spent the following week “walking” his comments back by denying that he had said that he was for a mandate.  The media was in a feeding frenzy, astounded that the former Speaker could simply deny that he might get away with the contradiction. However, in such cases, is it the person or logical contradiction itself that gets us so steamed?

Although we tend to point to the person who has made a contradiction without acknowledging it, ascribing possible sordid motives, it could be that the logical contradiction itself lies at the source of the angst in the beholder. More specifically, the logical contradiction itself may be in its substance an uncomfortable emotion rather than reason. In other words, violating logic may be an emotion that appears in the form of twisted reason.

Otherwise, it would be a case of reason causing an emotion. For example, “You logically contradicted yourself and that makes me mad” is typically taken as something of reason causing a particular emotion. It is difficult to link reason and emotion because we take them to be different things. It is a bit like Descartes’ mind-body problem.  Were logical contradiction itself an emotion, however, then to say that a contradiction caused anger might be easier to explain as one emotion would be giving rise to another—both being of the same type of thing (i.e., emotion).

Going even further, the observation that logical contraction is an emotion distinct from the anger may be an illusion.  Because the anger comes so quickly and naturally, it could be that what we take as the anger is simply part of the complex emotion of experiencing a logical contradiction. Similarly, when a person says that he feels confused, a cognitive condition is really an emotion because it is felt. Like confusion, experiencing logical contradiction does not feel good.

In general terms, talking about logical contradiction as an emotion of disapprobation reconciles Kant’s first formulation of his categorical imperative to Hume’s psychological theory of morality.  To Kant, moral principles are universal because of the role of universality and necessity in reason, so maxims that involve a logical contradiction if they are universalized cannot be moral. To Hume, moral judgment just is the sentiment of disapprobation.

Typically, Kant’s ethical theory is viewed as rationalist, whereas Hume’s is portrayed as psychological. However, if logical contradiction is itself an emotion having the form of reason, then it could be said that the moral sentiment of disapprobation applies to the uncomfortable emotion that the experience of logical contradiction. Reason turned against itself only seems to be cognitive rather than emotion. If what we have in a logical contradiction is essentially an emotion (or even an emotional reaction), then Kant’s rationalism and Hume’s sentimentalism are no longer antipodal. To say that logical contradiction is unethical is to say that it gives a rational and emotional being a sentiment of disapprobation. Logical contradiction itself naturally gives us a bad feeling; indeed, the contradiction may simply be a way of labeling a particular emotion.

So when we say that Newt Gingrich should not have contradicted himself (or he should own up to having contradicted himself), the basis of our moral judgment could be the emotion that we feel when we are confronted with a logical contradiction—the contradiction being that sentiment of disapprobation.

See related essay: "A Health-Insurance Mandate Consistent with Federalism."

Sources:

Kant’s Groundwork of Metaphysics and his Critique of Practical Reason.  See also David Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature.

Naftali Bendavid and Jonathan Weisman, “Medicare Revamp Exposes Divisions Within the GOP,” The Wall Street Journal, May 17, 2011, p. A6.

California’s Elongated Drought: Warming to a Changing Status-Quo

With the winter of 2014-2015 failing to deliver much of a snowpack to California, Californians entered a fourth year of drought. The measurement on March 3^rd of the snowpack was the water equivalent of five inches, or 19% of the average for that date.[1] The drought’s extension ran counter to the conventional wisdom that droughts last three years in California. Such “wisdom” is problematic not only for its specific content in this case, but also because of the underlying presumption of epistemological infallibility. Ok, I’ll unpack this bit of creative verbosity. Without being aware of it, we tend to assume that we can’t be wrong about things we have not studied. In fact, we even dismiss the knowledge of those who are learned in a given subject in favor of our own belief that we can’t be wrong about what we suppose we know. This tendency of the human brain gets our species in a lot of trouble, yet we as a species are nearly blind to underlying drought.

Felicia Marcus, chair of the State Water Resources Control Board, said at the time, “Last year people thought we were in a regular three-year drought cycle and it would rain next year.”[2] Even though people were aware of global warming, they presumed that what they thought they knew of the drought cycle was still applicable. Underlying this assumption is the more basic one that tomorrow will be like today and yesterday.

Problematically, the three-year drought-cycle presumption may have made California’s water-situation even worse. With the rain in December 2014, Californians generally may have taken longer showers and left their bathroom facets on while brushing their teeth under the mistaken assumption that drought must be ending. The following month was dry, so people watered normally dormant landscapes.

Even in trying to explain the elongated drought, people were getting it wrong in concluding that the cause was changing precipitation patterns. Global warming, evinced in California’s record average temperature in the winter of 2014-2014 of 45.6 degrees (F), is the actual cause. “The normal cyclical conditions in California are different now from what they used to be, and that’s not because the long-term annual precipitation changed,” Noah Diffenbaugh at Stanford’s Woods Institute for the Environment explains. “What is really different is there has been a long-term warming in California . . . (a)nd we know from looking at the historical record that low precipitation years are much more likely to result in drought conditions if they occur with high temperatures.”[3]  Yet in spite of such evidence and that of the Earth’s atmosphere as warming above and beyond normal cycles, enough people cling to their antiquated knowledge as if they cannot be wrong that I suspect that a human tendency is involved.

“It’s a three year drought,” someone in Sacramento says. The sheer declarative tone has the ring of hubris because the person has not read anything on the drought. The assumption of knowing nonetheless is precisely where the problem lies, if I am correct in my theory here. The human mind may put too much stock in its own machinery and its output. Another Californian says in San Diego, “Southern California is suffering from a shift in the precipitation pattern.” Let’s say he has not read this; it is his conclusion, or one of his friends has told him. Even without reading anything on the science of climate change even in a newspaper like The New York Times, the San Diegan may dismiss Diffenbaugh’s statement out of hand. It is the sheer dismissiveness that strikes me as arrogant, even strange. The Californian may even say (as I have heard before), “I don’t need to read the science; I know it is in dispute.” Well, actually it is not, but such a person—such a mind—would not know it because it is closed off—a closed system—and yet it is utterly unaware of what it itself has done to itself. Like the light from the most distant star, the news of the deed has not reached the doer yet—the doer who presumes to know beyond what any actual learning can bestow legitimacy.

Abstractly, I hypothesize (i.e., propose) that the human brain contains a vulnerability in bringing to experience—structuring it rather than from it (i.e., a priori rather than a posteriori)—the presumption of knowing more than is actually known and furthermore not being capable of being wrong even about such “knowledge.” It is as if a person were to go to some neighboring houses and without entering any of them proceeding nonetheless to speak in a tone of definitiveness to the occupants about what they should clean up inside. The mere tone would ooze out arrogance and presumption, and yet the speaker could be oblivious to what he is projecting from his or her own mind onto experience and thus the world—structuring it as he perceives it.

Philosophers may recall Kant’s claim that the mind provides its own structure on space and time themselves—and not from experience. Such synthetic, a priori ideas as we bring to our perception of space and time are like the epistemological assumptions that we carry around with us all the time. In both cases, we have no clue that we are bringing these ideas to the dance because we have them constantly with us. Noticing them would be like fish noticing the water in which they spend their entire lives. That which is a constant for us can easily be invisible rather than transparent to us, and thus escape our notice. Yet as Kant points out, we can notice, through reasoning.

Probing a person on knowledge we know lies beyond his or her reach, we can see the problematic assumptions in the absurdity to which he or she will go to defend the purported knowledge. Like arrogance on stilts during an increasingly common flood from a storm surge in Miami, the presumption should be under water rather than held above as if it were Moses incarnate coming down the mountain with a new tablet. Unfortunately, the mind’s internal defense-mechanisms can block the reception of even such obvious feedback, so it is probably pretty rare for the mind to “see” the “water” in which it has always resided. If I am correct, the mind itself—hence not out of experience—structures knowledge in terms of presumptuousness. That is to say, the problematic assumptions are not in the knowledge; rather, they come from the human mind and are projected onto the purported knowledge such that learning or becoming informed are assumed to be optional rather than requisite. The mind itself presumes itself so entitled even though the assumption is untenable. The fallacious thinking should be under water (naturally oblivious to it) rather than looking down from stilts as if not only legitimate at water-level, but also an authority above.

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[1] Adam Nagourney, “Alarm Rises For a State Withered By Drought,” The New York Times, March 18, 2015.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.