Freedom Blocked at the “Freedom 250” Grand Prix

The Indy Car Series event, held on August 23, 2026 in Washington, D.C. to celebrate the 250^th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence by delegates from the British colonies then officially in rebellion, ironically gave people visiting or living in the federal capitol a visceral experience of freedom blocked by governmental police and military authority. For not only the Mall, but also the entire route of the race was blocked by military and local police during the race such that public viewing was blocked. Entire city blocks separated the route from where tourists and local residents alike could drive and walk. Whether the federal government excessively pushed security at the expense of Americans being able to view the race without the luck of a lottery draw in advance for a ticket to be able to see the race at the Mall (roughly, between the Capitol building and the Washington Monument) is one question; the irony of being in such a visual, even overwhelming, militaristic police-city during a celebration of political freedom is more definite.

The public could not access the race route, or even get close enough to see the cars passing. That the entire race course, rather than just the designated fan areas on or near the Mall, was blocked raises the obvious question of why even to have a race if people are blocked from watching it. To be sure, free general-admission tickets were issued by lottery in advance but this process did not allow people in the city on the day of the race to spontaneously see the race, and the fact that a lottery had to be resorted to means that the demand for tickets exceeded the supply, which in turn may have been artificially restricted by security proponents in the government. Around the route, even surrounding streets were blocked off even from foot traffic. Even some museums near the Mall required a Grand Prix ticket for entry. High temporary fences along the Mall between it and the museums kept even people going to the latter to even glimpse the race.

To be sure, blocking visuals of the viewing stands, where ticketed seats were not free, could be justified on security grounds because President Trump was present there, but that rationale does not justify blocking the entire route, especially given the legitimate countervailing public interest to attend a celebration of the Declaration of Independence. In other words, a strong public interest existed but was wholly denied.

The sheer mass of local police, including their cars with emergency lights on, and the militias from the member states, including formidable military trucks, was arguably visually so oppressive as to be a turn-off to freedom-loving Americans. In other words, even if access to the route but not the viewing stands were possible, the experience of so many uniformed people with guns could be enough for a preference to leave the city that day.

Moreover, seeing so much military and police could prompt people to wonder just how much freedom still existed in the United States. The visuals could perhaps be likened to how daily life in Berlin in Nazi Germany may have looked. The presence of the military may have been especially startling to Americans not used to how much Washington, D.C. had changed since the twentieth century.

On the governmental side, the penchant for security can take on a life of its own, such that proponents unknowingly lapse in the sort of healthy judgment that is capable of balancing security interests with others. Such balance goes by the wayside as a republic transitions itself into a police state, and the change can be so gradual that reversal is almost impossible. Like a frog in a pot of water that is gradually being heated, citizens of a republic may not notice even that a transition has been underway. To be sure, American tourists in Washington on August 23, 2026 may have been stunned by the fresh sight of so many military troops, trucks, police employees, and police cars so concentrated blocks from the route and even farther into the city itself.

History may record the transition from the Roman republic to the Roman Empire as sudden, but in the daily life of the Romans, the increased visuals of weaponized troops may have been gradual. Perhaps some educated tourists in Washington during the race may have thought of what Rome may have been like when gladiator contests were going on in the coliseum—celebrations of Roman political power accompanied by a formidable military presence in the vicinity, given the typical attendance of the emperor at the games. Americans could benefit from the insight that even if their empire is a “city on a hill,” as President Reagan referred to the U.S., it is not immune from the rise and fall of empires that has gone on throughout history. A domestic presence of military forces even in the midst of a lot of local police present may be an indication that a republic is in transition to something else, and this transition could be part of the more general decline of empires.

Regulating Smoking in China: A Socialist Conflict of Interest

Government ownership and control of a means of production is the standard definition of socialism even if some linguistic revisionists want to redefine the term as merely the control of a business or industry. In short, a government must own the economic enterprises to meet the definition of Socialism rather than merely government regulation of private businesses. Socialism, I contend, involves a structural conflict of interest that a government that both owns an controls an enterprise, industry or even an entire economy may be tempted to exploit for its own ends rather than the public good. The key here is the regulating of that which is owned. Specifically, where a government as owner enjoys the benefit of profit or surplus, that government has a financial interest that can be against the restriction of the produced product. Such a monopolistic restriction could admittedly be warranted by public health or safety, but the gain could also be private in the sense that it is limited to the government and even the personal financial interests of government officials. In other words, the public good can be distinct from a government’s own financial (and related political) interest even as that government is charged with acting in the public interest in part by owning and regulating state enterprises. It is the pivot between the public and private interest that sets up the conflict of interest because the human urge is to go with a narrower, private interest at the expense of the public good. In other words, the very possibility, even likelihood given human nature, that a government would exploit the wider distribution of benefits for the narrower one (i.e., to the government itself) is the basis of a conflict of interest. I argue elsewhere that even the mere possibility renders even an as-yet unexploited conflict of interest inherently unethical. Here, I examine the matter of public health in China as a case of a socialist (in part) government that has had a conflict of interest. 

Three hundred million Chinese were smokers in 2010. This number is roughly equivalent to the entire U.S. population in 2000. In 2010, the addiction killed an estimated 3,000 people a day in China; this translates into 1.2 million tobacco-related deaths for the year. One out of three cigarettes smoked worldwide was smoked in China. It was estimated that smoking would kill about a third of Chinese men under 30. On May 1, 2011, the Chinese government banned smoking in indoor public places. However, the law contained no penalties. According to Time magazine, the law was not likely to have any effect.[1]

The reason for the lenient regulation may have had something to do with the powerful China National Tobacco corporation, a state-owned and controlled enterprise. In 2010, taxes and profits from the monopoly were roughly 7% of the government’s revenue.[2] That gave government officials an incentive to protect the enterprise's revenue and a disincentive to issue regulations that could be expected to reduce the consumption of cigarettes in China even if a reduction were in the public interest. This combination of incentive and disincentive is an earmark of a conflict of interest, the basis of which is the human instinctual urges behind the combination. 

This may be why more incentive typically exists to protect and increase revenue coming in than to minimizing costs even if they exceed the revenue. Even if the government’s expense in covering health-care costs for the 3,000 Chinese a day who died of smoking in 2010 exceeded 7% of the government’s total revenue, even a partial loss of revenue would likely be resisted by government officials.  Attention to revenue can dwarf that to costs especially where no market competition exists because extracting more revenue is relatively easy whereas cost-containment is still difficult.
Ethically, the government officials otherwise tasked with regulating so as to protect the public health in China and thus preventing deaths from smoking suffered from the personal (if kickbacks were involved) and institutional conflict of interest wherein the government’s financial interest and public-health goals were in conflict. That is to say, the officials not only had their own ethical dilemmas to resolve; there was also a larger institutional problem akin to a house being designed to be at odds with itself. The part of the government oriented to protecting and even increasing the revenue may have had disproportionate influence beyond that of the public-health department because the narrower the benefits are, the greater the incentive. Seven percent of the state's revenue doubtless got more attention from the state itself than its broader public-health measures, including those that made it more difficult for people to smoke in public. 

See related essay: Socialism Where You Might Least Expect It.

See related book: Institutional Conflicts of Interest:Business & Public Policy.

1. “A Smoking Ban without Teeth,” Time, May 20, 2011.
2. Ibid.

The 2012 U.S. Presidential Election: Fueled by Leadership or Money?

The 2012 U.S. presidential election was the first in which neither of the major-party candidates participated in the campaign-matching system that imposes campaign spending limits in return for federal financing. It was also the first presidential election since the Citizens United case in 2010. That U.S. Supreme Court ruling was a significant factor in the election because corporations and unions could dip into their respective treasuries directly, rather than only through employee or member contributions, spend an unlimited amount on political ads by making donations to “social welfare” organizations. Without disclosing their donor lists, these non-profit organizations could create political ads that in turn could favor or criticize a particular candidate, albeit with no formal approval from the favored candidate. Faced with formidable super PACs pumping some $800 million or more in favor of Mitt Romney, Obama’s money-machine went into high-gear in a sort of “rich man’s” arms-race. Some rich donors had spent millions of dollars to push the massive ship of state a discernible distance in their direction. Hardly anyone expected that the contending high monies would virtually cancel each other out. Hardly anyone thought the Obama campaign’s scientifically-based “ground game” oriented to getting new voters registered would trump Romney’s financial advantage. To be sure, Wall Street was also behind Obama; Goldman Sachs had donated $1 million in 2008, and Obama in turn gave the big banks federal money (TARP) without strings, including on bonuses (which the bankers abused).

Subtly missing in the 2012 presidential election season among all the financial fire-power and Obama’s grass-roots operation and even all the presidential “debates” were ideas and a sustained societal discussion of a few basic principles of political economy and governance. The result, in spite of all the money, time and effort, was a continuance of the political status-quo because few minds were changed in the process. If ideas and rational argument are not absolutely required for a basic shift in a body politic worth the name vision, at least they provide for a basis for leadership and real change.  

Unfortunately, The New York Times reported afterwards that “the overall cost of the campaign rose accordingly, with all candidates for federal office, their parties and their supportive ‘super PACs’ spending more than $6 billion combined.” The grand result for all that money was that the U.S. House remained in Republican hands, the U.S. Senate continued with a slim Democratic majority, and the Democrats held the White House. Even the deal-makers—the major players—notably John Boehner, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Mitch McConnell, and Barak Obama—remained in place. The difficulty they had had as a group in coming to agreement on major policy items before the election was essentially unchanged.

On Thursday, November 8^tth The New York Times summed up the previous year and a half as follows: “After $6 billion, two dozen presidential primary election days, a pair of national conventions, four general election debates, hundreds of Congressional contests and more television advertisements than anyone would ever want to watch, the two major political parties in America essentially fought to a standstill. When all the shouting was done, the American people on Tuesday more or less ratified the status quo that existed at the start of the day: they returned President Obama to the White House for another four years, reaffirmed Republican control of the House and kept the Senate in Democratic hands. As of Wednesday, the margins in the House and the Senate had each changed by just two or three seats.” For all the money, time and effort spent kicking up dirt and picking fights, when the dust settled it was clear that the American electorate had not moved much at all.

It is not that the American electorate intentionally voted for continued divided government or gridlock. Rather, the American body politic contained voters of diametrically-opposed political, economic and social ideologies. In spite of the length of the campaign “season,” neither camp had budged by election-day. The resulting continuance of the status quo meant the continuance of the political constellation in Washington that had led to gridlock. Besides gridlock being more generally etched into the very design of the federal lawmaking apparatus in part to check power as well as unwelcome encroachments of the General Government on to the turf of the state governments, the various stalemates on the Hill in 2011 and 2012 were a manifestation, or symptom, of where the People as an aggregate stood then politically—that is, divided and even polarized ideologically. As a result of the stark ideological differences between citizens and the multiple points of access available in the U.S. Government, both major parties had sufficient electoral support and accessibility to the federal law-making machinery to grind policy-making and legislative activity to a halt on major problems desperately in need of solutions.

A story in The New York Times on the day after the election had as a headline, “Electorate Reverts to a Familiar Divide as Obama’s Support Narrows.” He “garnered just 50 percent of the popular vote, three percentage points lower than in 2008, in a sign of just how divided” the electorate was “over his leadership.” In spite of Obama having lost some of his base, the mere two-percentage-point difference in the popular vote between the two major candidates meant that among the electorate neither “side” had budged much. To find a “verdict” on the president’s first term beyond the vested opinions of the two bases, one must look to how the independents. Even there, the “verdict” was muted.

Referring to the independents, the New York Times reported that the vote was “very close.” In some swing states, including Ohio and Virginia, Romney received a slight majority of such voters (53 and 54 percent, respectively), while Obama received similar majorities in a few others (Iowa and New Hampshire). However, Obama received 45 percent of the independents over all (Romney got 50 percent), and in 2008 Obama had received 52 percent. This means that Obama lost some of the independents he had had in 2008. As a “verdict” of the relatively neutral “jury” segment within the electorate, the loss of 8 percent suggests something less than a vindication for the president.

Moreover, that Obama received 50% of the popular vote over all while Romney got 48% suggests that the contest ended unchanged as a virtual draw. Put another way, only about 3 million Americans out of 310 million residents in the U.S. separated the two candidates in the popular vote. About 1% of the entire population hardly constitutes a mandate, as if “the American people” has swung around en mass to support the incumbent after a long and hard-fought campaign.

To be sure, some general movement can be discerned, as most counties had shifted in the Democratic direction in 2008 to vote for Obama only to shift back in a Republican direction in 2012. It could be said that the country had returned to its native center-right position. That Obama’s narrower base came out in sufficient force to counter the general shift in a Republican direction in most counties and a slight shift away by some independents accounts for his slight majority in the popular vote (and his wins in almost all of the swing states). Even so, such wan movement does not constitute the sort that is associated with an idea or mandate. Put another way, even the shift toward “Obamania” of 2008 was short-lived—the ideational shortfall rendering the “movement” as akin to a short-lived energy spirt from cotton-candy rather than new muscle from rich protein.

Accordingly, “(t)he bottom-line scorecard [from the 2012 federal election] left Washington as divided as ever,” according to the Times, “with no resolution of most of the fundamental issues at stake. The profound debate that has raged over the size and role of government, the balance between stimulus spending and austerity and the proper level of taxation has not been settled in the least.” The ideas had not changed because the hyperactive campaigns had been relatively bereft of new ones or even serious discussion of the central principles.

For all of the money, ads, and “debates,” one might say that talking points rather than novel arguments or ideas took center-stage during the long campaign “season.” In an interview on CBS’s Sixty Minutes broadcast shortly before the election, David McCullough, who had written several books on American political history (and who spoke at my doctoral graduation ceremony!), said he doubted that any words from the two major presidential candidates would stand the test of time. In fact, nothing said or written during even the “debates” was worthy of being retained past the news cycle of the day. The historian went on to contrast the contemporary talking-points with the authenticity in Truman’s “Give ‘em hell Harry!” campaign of 1942. In 2012, talking points backed up by fund-raising and the application of empirical political science to getting elected punctuated the candidates’ trajectories along paths of political-least resistance.

Considering the sheer duration of the primaries and general campaign, the opportunity-cost of shallow campaigning is in terms of foregone governance not only during the duration, but afterward as well. Moreover, the empty-form of a superficial campaign-mode exacerbates the fundamental flaw in having extended the campaign “season” further and further:  Taking a means—that of selecting office-holders to govern—as more important than its end, governance. The eclipse of governance at the federal level in the U.S. is from not only gridlock, but also the enabling ideational emptiness of the modern campaign elongated into a sustained void of sorts that the electorate allowed to take on a life of its own. 

For the body politic to shift as a body having a will from the status quo such that political leadership evincing a direction could replace gridlock and stasis, some ideational-ideological change would have to have occurred in enough voters that the contours of the body itself will have changed. Sadly, the experience of having gone through the financial crisis of 2008—rather than any new idea or exchange of ideas—led an unusually high 51% of the presidential voters in 2008 to favor more government intervention in the economy while only 43% wanted more things to be left to business. The unusually high percentage was a result of economic fear and perhaps even greater hardship due to the crisis, rather than from a national debate centered on a reconsideration of old ideas.

That even powerful people can reflect on the level of fundamental ideas and come to different conclusions genuinely rather than in a political calculation (e.g., Obama’s “change” on gay marriage during his re-election campaign) suggests that citizens too can allow themselves to be more open ideologically and thus shift. An empirical crisis, for instance, can jar loose even fundamental paradigms. For example, Alan Greenspan, a former chairman of the Federal Reserve, admitted in Congressional testimony after the financial crisis of 2008 that the freezing-up of the commercial paper market in September 2008 had shown him that his free-market, or laissez-faire economic paradigm had a fundamental flaw. He marveled before a panel of lawmakers that forty years of observing markets had done nothing to point to the flaw. Specifically, the market mechanism itself can freeze-up rather than make pricing adjustments under conditions of high volatility involving high uncertainty and risk. In September 2008 as banks lost trust in each other, they stopped lending rather than adjust their rates of interest upward to compensate for the additional risk. High risk, especially if occurring all of a sudden, can paralyze a market’s mechanism. Hence, the former central banker could suddenly discern a rationale for regulation by the government because of the “fatal flaw” in the “market-alone” paradigm.

Had the ideas behind Greenspan’s paradigmatic shift percolated through the electorate during the presidential election of 2008 or even 2010 in place of “Obama as the flavor of the month,” the percentages on the question would not have subsequently flipped back in 2012 back to “center-right” on the question of the role of government in regulating business. Rather, a fundamental shift similar to that which ushered in the New Deal in the 1930s would have been realized. That Greenspan’s “ideational moment” had not registered in the campaigns or the electorate itself at least by 2012 can be seen from the fact that Romney called for financial deregulation even though the lack of regulation of mortgage-based securities had played a significant role in the financial crisis. Absent a sustained paradigmatic reflection from a shared experience of the financial crisis, the electorate was vulnerable to the financial-political power of Wall Street as it continued as though legitimately along its familiar trajectory of profit and self-interest. It is significant that even though Obama came out slightly ahead in 2012, the electorate as a body evinced a shift back to its pre-2008 center-right position on government intervention in business.

Absent new ideas and a sustained reflection on the continued viability of extant paradigms, an electorate succumbs to the status quo. More money—much more money—and more time—much more time—does not necessarily mean that an election-cycle makes a dent in the judgment of the popular sovereign—the We the People—come election day. An election-campaign season should be a rather brief yet poignant opportunity for a genuine societal reflection that results in the body politic being in a new place—that is, changed in some way that will reflect on the ensuing governance. I contend that the way Americans elect the president of the Union was by 2012 not only flawed, but also rather ineffectual and even impotent. It is as though a runner were running in circles only to end up panting where he had begun. To use another analogy, it is as though the voters woke up the day after election day still hungry in spite of having eaten so much cotton-candy. The sacrifice of governance alone, not to mention the value in the popular sovereign (the We the People) making its judgment on general policy and candidates, suggests that elections should include new ideas and substantive arguments rather than each side hammering in more of the same through an eternally-repeated stump-speech and “debate” talking-points.

If there is one thing we can discern concerning the voters almost without exception on the morning after voting, according to the Times, “they were glad that the strident and polarizing contest between President Obama and Mitt Romney was ending.” Beyond the proliferation of negative ads, especially in the “swing states,” and the sheer length of the primary and general campaigns, the voter-frustration may reflect a still-unsatisfied hunger for ideas and authentic, substantive discussion of them and the paradigms we construct out of them and what can be termed, ideational values. I suspect that the want of ideas and genuine discourse had existed for so long that few if any Americans realized what was at the core of their discontent regarding the election cycle. The root may go far deeper than Citizens United and even the serial elongation of campaigning at the expense of governance. It may be asked whether a starving man will eat if he does not realize he is starving.

Sources:

Jackie Calmes and Megan Thee-Brenan, “Electorate Reverts to a Familiar Partisan Divide,” The New York Times, November 7, 2012.

Susan Saulny, “The Most Sought-After Voters Were No Longer Flattered by the Attention,” The New York Times, November 7, 2012.

Jeff Zeleny and Jim Rutenberg, “Focus Is On Economy As Voters Choose,” The New York Times, November 7, 2012.

Michael Shear, “As Electorate Changes, Fresh Worry for G.O.P.” The New York Times, November 8, 2012.

Peter Baker, “Obama Wins a Clear Victory, but Balance of Power Is Unchanged in Washington,” The New York Times, November 8, 2012.

Sara Murray and Patrick O’Connor, “How The Race Slipped Away From Romney,” The Wall Street Journal, November 8, 2012.

Egyptian Court Overreached in Declaring a Legislature to be Unconstitutional

In 1803, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Madison v. Marbury, which established the authority of the court to declare a law to be unconstitutional, and thus invalid. A basic principle underlying this authority is that a constitution is on a level superior to a statute. An entity established in a constitution to interpret it can thus invalidate a law passed by another body established in the constitution. Invalidating that other body itself would be an entirely different matter, as it would involve one constitutional body dissolving another of equivalent grounding.

Accordingly, the constitutional court in Egypt overreached on June 14, 2012 in declaring the parliament dissolved. To treat a legislative body as akin to a law established by such a body evinces a category mistake with respect to level. Whereas a law is subject to decisions by governmental bodies, the latter themselves are subject to constitutional amendment rather than governmental action (including that of the judicial branch of government). General speaking, basic law such that creates governmental bodies (whether in constitutional language or not) trumps that which is created by those bodies. Put another way, a court must take the existence of the extant government institutions as a given.

By loose analogy, the Egyptian court was treating a sibling as if it were an offspring. Whereas brothers and sisters of the same generation are “on the same level,” their kids are on another level. One does not treat one’s brother and nephew similarly. So too, sibling governmental institutions should not treat each other as if they were that which they produce.

The judicial breach in Egypt was particularly suspect because the justices had been appointed by Mubarak, whose last prime minister was running for president against the candidate of the opposition party, which dominated the parliament as a result of a democratic election. Fittingly, that party disputed the court’s ruling and its authority to dissolve the legislature. Saad el Katatni, the Parliament’s majority leader, accused the military-led government of orchestrating the ruling. Although it was politically suspect and thus not credibly judicial, my point is that for the justices even to have thought that a court could dissolve another governmental body points to a basic ignorance concerning the difference between a constitution, governmental institutions, and laws.

A constitution (or basic law) creates and thus is superior to governmental bodies, which in turn make, execute or interpret (and thus are superior to) laws. That this basic hierarchy was somehow lost on the Egyptian justices suggests a basic incompetence that nullifies the court’s decision as that of a constitutional court. In other words, the decision can be interpreted as a coup rather than a judicial ruling merely on account of the ignorance. The error is that glaring, and yet somehow the jurists presented the ruling as legitimate nonetheless.

Faced with the real likelihood that the nescient democracy was being snuffed out by the partisan power-play made under judicial auspices, Egyptian citizens of all stripes had to decide whether to put a democratic Egypt above even partisan advantage. I suppose the matter of democracy in an autocratic context depends ultimately on how badly the body politic wants political self-determination, for the forces that are dominant in the status quo do not just go softly into the night. Rather, they have to be shown the door more than once, until they finally get the message.

Source:

David Kirkpatrick, “Forces Surround Parliament in Egypt,Escalating Tensions,” The New York Times, June 15, 2012. 

Constructing a Constitution: Egypt in the Arab Spring

Concerning a new constitution, which is more important: the process or the content? In Egypt in 2012, that most secularists and the Coptic Christian representatives walked out of the assembly working on a constitutional document suggests that the final product would not have legitimacy for all of Egypt. To be sure, it is possible for a partisan group to design a system of basic law that is not overtly self-serving at others’ expense. The document that emerged from the assembly weakens the presidency and strengthens the parliament. This shift was in line with the popular protest in “the Arab Spring.” However, the assembly left in place a “longstanding article” grounding Egyptian law in the principles of one religion. Furthermore, a provision on women’s equality was left out, and the military generals would keep their existing power. Moreover, anticipating dissolution from Mubarak-appointed judges, the assembly began its work from the last Egyptian constitution.

Do the members of the constitutional assembly look liberal or conservative?  Reuters

Basing deliberations on the status quo works against the process needed to arrive at a new constitution, especially if the last constitution had been constructed in a very different time. The Wall Street Journal reported at the time that legal experts indicated that the assembly’s final document was “almost identical to the 1971 constitution written by former President Anwar Sadat”—hardly a democratic document.

The construction of a new constitution from scratch would have had particular value in allowing the old political system to “catch up” to the contemporary context. The default, in short, in a constitutional assembly’s deliberations should not be based in the status quo. This point is easily missed, particularly when the other weakness of a partisan group dominating the assembly is also the case.

In the best of all possible worlds (Leibniz’s expression), delegates from all of the principal segments of society should be included in a constitutional assembly, with no group having a majority. Where such a majority is the case, a certain percentage of the minority should be required for an article to be adopted. Second, rather than being based on the last constitution, the starting point could be based on a new blue-print formulated in very basic terms by a committee (composed of delegates from the major segments of society). In the case of Egypt, delegates favoring particular major religions as well as secular society should have been on such a committee, and, moreover, active in the deliberations of the committee of the whole—the assembly itself.

A constitutional assembly should be a microcosm of the macro society, and thus inclusive of the powers and the non-so-powerful. Ideally, Rawls’ “veil of ignorance” should apply, wherein no delegate knows which segment he or she is in. Hence, no segment is apt to be left out or expunged. The veil would apply as well to the existing or prior constitution, so ever its assumptions would not serve as the default for deliberation. In short, a constitutional assembly should “reinvent the wheel” in the context of where a society is, rather than was. This does not mean that the resulting document would necessarily be progressive, particularly if a given society is traditionally-oriented.

In the case of Egypt, the “new” constitution drafted by the assembly, unlike the constitution that had been written by Anwar Sadat, includes a reference to the laws of a particular religion. In fact, both the state and “society” are given the authority to “ensure public morality.” Lest it be supposed that Egyptian society had become more traditionalist and religious in terms of a particular religion since 1971, the changes from the status quo document could simply have been a reflection of the partisan make-up of the assembly. 

In conclusion, all major segments of society must ratify a proposed document of basic law for it to have legitimacy and a real chance at a sustained run. Absent such approval of a super-majority or of all of the major elements of society, a proposal should be read as partial or incomplete. Rather than returning to it, a new assembly of delegates should “start from scratch” so a document can be crafted with presuppositions freed from the tyranny of the status quo and any major faction.

Sources:

David Kirkpatrick, “Islamists Rush Through Egyptian Constitution and Prepare to Vote on It,” The New York Times, November 30, 2012.

Sam Dagher and Matt Bradley, “Egypt Adds Islamic Influence to Constitution,” The Wall Street Journal, November 30, 2012.

U.S. President Obama on Executive Power

In February 2011, U.S. President Barak Obama directed the U.S. Justice Department to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act, which bars federal recognition of gay marriages, against constitutional challenges. “Previously, the administration had urged lawmakers to repeal it, but had defended their right to enact it. In the following months, the administration increased efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions through environmental regulations, gave states waivers from federal mandates if they agreed to education overhauls, and refocused deportation policy in a way that in effect granted relief to some illegal immigrants brought to the country as children. Each step substituted for a faltered legislative proposal.”[1] While not defying Congressional statutes, the use of executive power to thwart defending a statute violates the enforcement function of the executive branch. The other matters—enacting environmental regulations, granting relief to some illegal immigrants, and issuing state waivers presumably were under broader statutes that permit administrative action by the executive branch. The danger, however, is that the enforcement branch or arm could become a legislative branch or arm of the U.S. Government.

The irony is that Barak Obama had criticized George W. Bush’s use of signing statements. The New York Times points out that the institutional incentives of the presidency had come to affect even Obama. This is an extremely significant point, for it suggests that “elections have consequences” is buffered by the institutional trappings of the particular office.

For example, as the E.U. was struggling to manage the debt of some large states by pressing for austerity budget cuts at the state level, it was feared that state office-holders would be elected who had promised to leave the euro and reject the austerity. From the example of Obama on executive power, we can say that such fear was over-stated.  A Euroskeptic once in office is subject to pressure from other states as well as from E.U. officials. The consequent backtracking is typically viewed as political fear. I contend that it is merely a natural reaction to the incentives of a given office and institutional placement (i.e., as a state in the E.U.).

Rather than being hypocrites,  office-holders who said one thing on the campaign trail but then modified their position once in office can be said to be shifting from campaigning to governing—the latter being subject to the institutional incentives of the office. The breadth of campaign proposals is almost necessarily to be wider than the actual conduct of office-holders because the “mandates” of an office have a converging effect because the office itself does not change.

Obama could have campaigned as an anti-executive candidate, but once he was sworn in he became an executive and thus had to function as one. His anti-executive campaign promises would translate at best on the margins of his governing decisions.  Hence, “real change” on the campaign trail is one thing, but change by office-holders is notoriously incremental by nature of the continuance of the respective offices. In other words, the status quo is the clear favorite where a government of offices has already been established. For “real change,” governmental change must also be included, and that cannot come from extant offices.

Generally speaking, what we take as change—what we expect in this regard from our elected office-holders—is only a very moderated sense of change. Put another way, we expect too much out of existing offices. If we want “real change” in terms of policy, we must also look at structural change of the government.

1. Charlie Savage, “Shift onExecutive Power Lets Obama Bypass Rivals,” The New York Times, April 22, 2012. 

When the Campaign Eclipses Governing: A Matter of Values

In the mix of politics and government in any republic, stretches of governance are marked off by much shorter electoral seasons.  As decision-points, election campaigns are not designed to be of a considerable duration, particularly relative to that of governing.  In other words, the point of elections is governance, whereas the objective of governance is not (and thus should not be) elections. The reason is that the function of elected representatives is to govern rather than to run yet again. When the interstices become the long lines, and the long lines are reduced to interstices, one can expect popular fatigue from incessant fighting and frustration from a lack of attention on governing.

In April of 2011, American news networks were claiming, “2012 has officially begun.” There was a conflict of interest in the assertion because the media stood to gain viewers from brewing controversies among the candidates for president. Both the candidates and the journalists stood to gain from the increased attention.  In early May, for example, The Huffington Post attempted to turn the story of Obama’s killing of Osama into one of electoral politics in the “upcoming” 2012 election. “The daring nighttime raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan draws a sharp contrast between President Barack Obama and a field of potential Republican challengers who have comparatively scant foreign policy experience.”[1] The key word here is potential. Might it be more prudent to wait for the challengers to officially announce and start actively campaigning before analysis of a “determined” set of candidates is commenced?

Moreover, the attempt to steer the foreign policy story into the field of electoral politics implicitly suffers the opportunity cost of attention being diverted from other foreign policy questions that are related to the death of bin Laden, such as whether Pakistan knew of his compound and whether U.S. foreign aid should continue. The otherwise greater intensity of coverage on Pakistan's role might have made the difference in upping the pressure to the point at which someone in Pakistan with the inside scoop would have cracked and spilled the beans on what Pakistani government officials had really known.  

One of the few downsides of a free society is that media distractions can run far and wide--even snowballing without taking root. To the extent that representatives are either behind such distractions or are pressured to join them, a republic is vulnerable to excessive democracy (the bad side of the demos identified by Plato and Aristotle with the mob). The American citizenry may be too prone to vicariously enjoy the fights of a campaign (the modern day version of going to the statium to watch the gladiators?) while finding the civic responsibility of keeping attuned to the governing (or at least letting the representatives govern in peace) too boring and banal--not sufficiently stimulating in an age of "reality" shows playing out on television. Must the lowest denominator rule in a republic?

As another example of campaigning eclipsing governing in the context of governance, the health-insurance reform in 2009 and 2010 can be cited. The question of whether there should be a government alternative to private health insurance companies quickly gave rise to health-insurance-company-sourced talking points on death-panels thrown to partisans like Sarah Palin, who was not involved in the governing. Also, whether Barak Obama was a socialist was staged as a sideshow oriented to the campaigning realm. For whatever reason, it was difficult for the media (and presumably the viewers) to stay on point even when policy makers were trying to determine the merits of a public option.  In other words, even having representatives oriented to policy discussions may not be sufficient to keep a restless media and citizenry attuned. However, even some of those representatives might have believed their policy positions to be strengthened from a campaign-oriented digression. In an open society, multiple entrance points exist for self-interested distractions.

To be sure, citizen participation during the intervals of governance is not necessary in a republic; the problem is when citizens’ diversions enabled by the media (and/or government officials) eventuate in the governors turning to campaigning even without an election in sight. A crucial difference between representative and direct democracy is that in a republic governance is delegated to representatives. In other words, the citizenry is not obliged to remain engaged once governance again takes over after an election. This does not mean, however, that the citizenry must take the bait when some representatives are tempted to divert from governance by starting the next election cycle too early. Nor does it mean that elected representatives must take the bait from some journalists who suspect a wider viewership (or readership) could be obtained from stirring up campaign controversies even years before the next election.

Perhaps the underlying question is whether a representative democracy necessarily succumbs to the lowest common denominator, or whether a citizenry has the requisite impulse control to maintain the viability of the political system by refusing to distract the governors from their governing (or to take the bait from bored or campaign-oriented officials). It is essentially a matter of what the citizenry values: the duration wherein representatives govern or the titillating excitement of a childish fight at the expense of governing. The funny thing about a republic is that what we observe in our representatives can be a reflection of ourselves.  We blame them exclusively at our own folly. In other words, it takes two to tangle. If there is an adult in the house, perhaps we could get on with governing.

1. Charles Babington, “GOP Presidential Field For 2012 Maintains Foreign Policy Void,” The Huffington Post, May 5, 2011.

See Jeff Zelleny, “Obama Will Move Political Operations to Chicago,” The New York Times, January 20, 2011.