Philosophy
This week marked the 40th anniversary of the release of the Pentagon Papers. Daniel Ellsberg leaked the classified, massive report outlining the full history of American involvement in Vietnam to the New York Times who ran portions of it. It was the act that led Nixon to create "the plumbers," a group of covert spies working for the White House whose job was to sabotage the lives and work he saw as enemies.
Interestingly, this week, we also had a CIA operative come out and admit that the Bush administration told him twice to investigate Juan Cole, a political science professor at Yale whose blog offered the strongest and most well-reasoned arguments against the Bush administrations claims during the march to war against Iraq. This Nixonian behavior from an administration who was simultaneously arguing quite vociferously that all discussions with the President by anyone offering advice needed to be kept confidential so that the President would receive "unvarnished" recommendations. If the discussion could be made part of the larger discourse, then people would not really speak their minds, but say what would be popular, not what they really believed.
Our representative democracy is at root based on an Enlightenment concept that a well-informed electorate will make the best decisions. As such, for the people to decide whether an office holder is doing a good job and deserves re-election, we need to be well-informed about his or her decisions. Does this information include only the decision and the results of the decision or does the process leading up to the decision also need to be made public? Would such a move damage the deliberative process in the way the Bush folks claimed? If so, we have a conflict between democratic values and the ability of democratically elected representatives to effectively govern. Which ought to take precedent here?
- Justin Beiber, U.s. Senator
Now that the President has released his birth certificate, perhaps the next move for Donald Trump and the birthers is to contend that he forged the date. Maybe he was born in the U.S., maybe not; but is he really old enough to be President? The Constitution...
- Bill Cronon, Alec, And Undermining Democracy
In a Slate op/ed, Jack Shafer wrongly argues that there's nothing problematic with the FOIA requests filed by Republicans to examine the e-mails of Professor Bill Cronon. Shafer contends that because the Republicans are within their rights to file...
- What Are The Necessary Conditions For Democracy?
As Bush attempts to negotiate a Status of Forces Agreement with Iraq that includes what amount to permanent bases and immunity from prosecution for US troops and contractors, one realizes that even the person who spent so much time trying to trumpet the...
- Ummmm...this Seems Important
On Hardball last night, an interesting statement was made by David Schuster, a correspondent for MSNBC. He said, "INTELLIGENCE SOURCES SAY VALERIE WILSON WAS PART OF AN OPERATION THREE YEARS AGO TRACKING THE PROLIFERATION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS MATERIAL INTO...
- Bush The Democratic, Bush The Tyrannical
The discussion of the tyrannical man is the focus of Book IX of as Socrates and his young friends analyze how the son of a democratic man evolves into a tyrant. This situation is one that, like all other anecdotes and stories told by these philosophers,...
Philosophy
Privacy, Democracy, and Deliberation
This week marked the 40th anniversary of the release of the Pentagon Papers. Daniel Ellsberg leaked the classified, massive report outlining the full history of American involvement in Vietnam to the New York Times who ran portions of it. It was the act that led Nixon to create "the plumbers," a group of covert spies working for the White House whose job was to sabotage the lives and work he saw as enemies.
Interestingly, this week, we also had a CIA operative come out and admit that the Bush administration told him twice to investigate Juan Cole, a political science professor at Yale whose blog offered the strongest and most well-reasoned arguments against the Bush administrations claims during the march to war against Iraq. This Nixonian behavior from an administration who was simultaneously arguing quite vociferously that all discussions with the President by anyone offering advice needed to be kept confidential so that the President would receive "unvarnished" recommendations. If the discussion could be made part of the larger discourse, then people would not really speak their minds, but say what would be popular, not what they really believed.
Our representative democracy is at root based on an Enlightenment concept that a well-informed electorate will make the best decisions. As such, for the people to decide whether an office holder is doing a good job and deserves re-election, we need to be well-informed about his or her decisions. Does this information include only the decision and the results of the decision or does the process leading up to the decision also need to be made public? Would such a move damage the deliberative process in the way the Bush folks claimed? If so, we have a conflict between democratic values and the ability of democratically elected representatives to effectively govern. Which ought to take precedent here?
- Justin Beiber, U.s. Senator
Now that the President has released his birth certificate, perhaps the next move for Donald Trump and the birthers is to contend that he forged the date. Maybe he was born in the U.S., maybe not; but is he really old enough to be President? The Constitution...
- Bill Cronon, Alec, And Undermining Democracy
In a Slate op/ed, Jack Shafer wrongly argues that there's nothing problematic with the FOIA requests filed by Republicans to examine the e-mails of Professor Bill Cronon. Shafer contends that because the Republicans are within their rights to file...
- What Are The Necessary Conditions For Democracy?
As Bush attempts to negotiate a Status of Forces Agreement with Iraq that includes what amount to permanent bases and immunity from prosecution for US troops and contractors, one realizes that even the person who spent so much time trying to trumpet the...
- Ummmm...this Seems Important
On Hardball last night, an interesting statement was made by David Schuster, a correspondent for MSNBC. He said, "INTELLIGENCE SOURCES SAY VALERIE WILSON WAS PART OF AN OPERATION THREE YEARS AGO TRACKING THE PROLIFERATION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS MATERIAL INTO...
- Bush The Democratic, Bush The Tyrannical
The discussion of the tyrannical man is the focus of Book IX of as Socrates and his young friends analyze how the son of a democratic man evolves into a tyrant. This situation is one that, like all other anecdotes and stories told by these philosophers,...