Arguing against Alito: Why expert opinion should be respected in court

Kicking the can: Gang green: Bowdoin divest must improve message

When deciding the path for our country to take, democratic principles as we now interpret them dictate that we defer to the will of the people. Political elites know that to enact policies, one must generally have the people on your side. Good ideas and potentially sympathetic groups come in all kinds of packages, and often it is the delivery rather than the idea that is important in the public eye. Bad ideas can be very persuasive when presented well, and good ideas can be presented terribly and correspondingly fail to gain traction. The political battle becomes less about who can produce the most convincing idea than who can field the best PR team.
At their inceptions, the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street were considered comparable movements for Republicans and Democrats respectively. They were the grassroots of the extreme wing of their parties coming together and working for change. There is one obvious and notable difference between the two parties, however: the Tea Party still exists and OWS does not.
The Tea Party started by expressing itself in living rooms and had respectable people wearing ties at its helm. It developed a compelling message of personal freedom and responsibility and made its way into the hearts of many Americans. The Tea Party, as I’m sure you all remember, was at first the “Taxed Enough Already” party that complained mostly about having to pay for things like roads and schools. I’m not really any more a fan of OWS ideology—they missed the bull’s eye by the same amount that the Tea Party did—but they did a much worse job of selling their image. Sexual assaults, drugs, and homeless people do not a great political point make.
Previously a nicely polished movement with wide appeal, the Tea Party eventually turned into a conservative race to the bottom that has become a nightmare for Republican Party elites. In 2010 Republican candidates were able to ride the Tea Party wave into office, but now they are having massive branding problems because of the Todd Akins and Richard Mourdocks of this world. If that’s not current enough for you, there’s also Lindsay Graham’s challenger, Det Bowers, a pastor who views women’s love of their children as the leading cause of their husbands’ cheating. The Republican elite cannot rein in the growing number of weird candidates running in Republican primaries, and it is hurting their image nationwide. At least some, like Jeb Bush, have realized that they cannot look like their economic policy was developed by a coked-up Ayn Rand, or have their social agenda resemble the Westboro Baptist Church with more guns.
Opponents of fracking have done a truly fantastic job of packaging their viewpoints, while supporters have been hard-pressed to come up with arguments that are compelling in the public sphere. Stories of flammable tap water and general ecological devastation are powerful, as is the voice of Middlebury’s Bill McKibben, the charismatic and passionate environmental activist who might as well lead the movement.
Fear is a powerful political tool, and the opponents of fracking have harnessed it masterfully to the detriment of better ideas. For instance, regulation or a clear establishment of accountability would perhaps be preferable in a utilitarian sense to an outright ban. But images of fire coming from a faucet drown out meek cries of “regulate!” In lieu of good PR from a more centrist side—somwhere between “no way in hell” and “drill, baby, drill”—those with the best story, if not the best ideas, have won out.
Perhaps the only well-known and talked-about political movement here at Bowdoin is the campaign for divestment of fossil fuels. The idea has taken hold at many schools, several of which are actively considering it. Bowdoin’s divestment movement is much less successful. Students tend to roll their eyes at the mention of it.
I’ve heard general Bowdoin apathy blamed, but I propose another reason: really, really bad relations with the campus. Building a slum on the quad (happened last year, sorry first years), circulating petitions that many students have called misleading, and a general “you’re with us or you’re killing the world” vibe don’t really result in making friends.
Part of having a persuasive message is knowing your audience, and many students here tend to be unreceptive to showy or preachy movements.
The secret to electoral or policy success is not necessarily a good idea. People are more convinced by a well-articulated message than a coherent idea. Most people often won’t look past a gilded exterior to a bad idea on the inside, and it is even harder to ignore really bad delivery to embrace a good idea.
The importance of branding and messaging cannot be underscored enough for political entrepreneurs, and citizens should strive to evaluate messages beyond the initial glitz. In our democratic marketplace of ideas, it is the skilled promoter rather than the skilled idea-maker who is rewarded most.

Kicking the can: Examining Lattegate: Why political pissing matches must end

Last week, a scandal broke in Washington. A major instance of inappropriate interaction between the Executive Branch and the Armed Forces surfaced, shocking Americans from Berkeley to Bangor. The incident, which involved players from enlisted men all the way to the top of the chain of command was the latest in a series of controversies that have shrouded the federal government in a cloud of shame.
What was that scandal, you ask? The Commander-in-Chief made an unconscionable display of disrespect towards our men and women in uniform. What specifically? Now that you make me say it…he forgot to take his cup of coffee out of his hand to salute while disembarking Marine One.
The reasonable observer sees this picture: a Commander-in-Chief who had just recently started bombing a radical organization that has made a nasty habit of beheading journalists, steps off his helicopter wondering when the Ebola virus would hit America. He distractedly bungles a custom that’s been around for a tenth of our nation’s history by failing to transfer the beverage that, if I were him, would be keeping me alive, to his other hand. Whoops. Then he gets back to the business of blowing up people who have stated that they not only want to destroy the United States but have also begun a rapid conquest of Iraq and Syria.
But in today’s polarized and caustic political environment, such a silly mistake is taken by an extreme and unfortunately large fringe as further evidence for why the President—elected twice by the American people and grateful beneficiary of the American dream—is a traitor and uses the American flag as a Kleenex.
What in any sane political climate would garner a couple laughs and a shout-out on late-night television attracted attention from multiple cable news networks and (allegedly) serious political figures like Sarah Palin and Karl Rove.
It seems to be the era of cheap shots, where the mean-spirited personal attack is more valuable than the substantive political debate. Many Americans seem to truly believe that this President’s mundane actions are threatening their way of life, and have resorted to the basest of rhetorical tactics to assert their points.
In targeting mistakes like a bungled salute or resorting to name-calling—like Fox’s in-house quack Keith Ablow did this summer when he called Michelle Obama fat on national television and went on to assert that she “dislikes America”—the extreme element of the debate appeals to the worst side of people and introduces controversy where none belongs.
When the debate is consumed by irrelevant bits and pieces, the marketplace of ideas ceases to function and is replaced by a rhetorical cage fight. In the blogosphere, all too often a Hot Air writer will call the President a socialist and then someone at the Daily Kos will fire back that, well, Michele Bachmann is an utter psychopath. Pundits at Fox and MSNBC ridicule one another and compete to see who can accuse the other of hating freedom more. Instead of analyzing the policies proposed by each side, the political process is reduced to a pissing contest on the national scale.
Distractions like lattegate (apparently, it was actually a chai, enraging Karl Rove, who apparently can’t say chai without visible discomfort) degrade the national political discussion and lead citizens and media elites to waste time slinging mud instead of learning how the person for whom they cast a vote will work for them and for the nation.
Focusing on such silly things and calling each other names fuels the discontent that many Americans feel towards our political system and trivializes the political process.
We shouldn’t focus on which cup was in whose hand while they did what. Clearly, we should focus on the contents of that cup.
I, for one, am disgusted that it was not coffee.

Kicking the can

Arguing against Alito: Why expert opinion should be respected in court

This piece represents the opinion of the author:

David Steury

Columnist

September 19, 2014

It seems that whenever summer begins and I no longer have a bi-weekly soapbox to shout from, those in lofty positions of power start doing really stupid things. While I’m certain that the publication schedule of college newspapers is exogenous to the occurrence of ridiculous actions from public officials, I can’t help but take personal offense and assume that the culprits are saving their antics for late May to spite me and my loyal readers, which include and are probably limited to my mother, my girlfriend and Will Ossoff ’15. Now that the Orient will publish my drivel again, I’d like to go back to the beginning of the summer, and a certain Supreme Court case—Hall v. Florida.

Freddie Lee Hall was convicted of a particularly vicious murder in 1978 and summarily sentenced to death. Although a trial judge had found “substantial evidence” that Hall had “been mentally retarded his entire life,” Hall was kept on death row thanks to a Florida law that used a so-called “bright-line” test for determining whether or not a defendant is mentally disabled. Under the law, if a defendant scores above a 70 on an IQ test, he or she is deemed intellectually competent and eligible for the death penalty, with no more questions asked. Hall scored in the low 70s, deeming him intellectually competent by the bright-line test, which led him to appeal the test. Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority, agreed with Hall, noting that “[i]ntellectual disability is a condition, not a number.”

The unsettling element of this decision was not the outcome, but rather the margin and the dissent. Justice Samuel Alito filed a strong dissent to the five-justice majority decrying the Court’s reliance on “the positions adopted by private professional organizations…most notably the American Psychiatric Association.” In other words, according to Alito, Florida can kill whoever Florida wants, regardless of constitutional limitations to the cruel and unusual practice of executing the mentally handicapped.

Alito argues that the bright-line test is sufficient to dodge the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment and that the opinions of professionals should have no place in coloring the judicial process. This is especially ironic given that the IQ standard specifically relies upon an examination administered by professionals.

Alito will accept the IQ measurement but will not accept that the measurement can be flawed or that, as Justice Kennedy pointed out, “[a]n individual’s score is best understood as a range of scores on either side of the recorded score.” Instead, Alito would seek to affirm the right of states to capriciously execute its citizens, even if doctors have said that those citizens are medically unable to be full members of society and ultimately accountable for their actions.

In cases of law and justice, Alito writes, “what counts are…the standards of the American people—not the standards of professional associations, which at best represent the views of a small professional elite.” After all, who cares what educated people, trained to identify mental illness, have to say about a potentially mentally ill defendant? The views of the lynch mob should not take precedence over the informed opinions of highly educated professionals. In fact, a key tenet of our system of government is that the majority doesn’t always get what it wants. James Madison argued that “an interested and overbearing majority” could trample the rights of the few. Of course, he was speaking to the principles of government as a whole, but this philosophy that the less powerful must be protected in a just, inclusive government can extend to this situation. The state, governed by the majority, wanted to kill Hall. But Hall, with the help of those whose job it is to know what they’re talking about, pointed out why it would be unjust to put him to death and ultimately prevented it from happening.

To dismiss the views of professionals is to misunderstand why we have them in the first place. Professionals inform the public in all matters ranging from personal health, finance, how computers work and politics. If we did not care what learned people had to say, we would still think that the Earth is flat and that leeches can cure diseases. Eschewing the views of professionals when we do not agree is easy but it is also dangerous. The views of professionals reflect our society’s best understanding of the fields they represent, and that understanding should not be compromised by vindictive urges or a base idea that things should be different. As a civilized society, we must not simply kill those who have done wrong, especially when it is possible that they cannot fully grasp the weight of their actions. Justice Kennedy and the majority understood this and gave due deference to people who know what they’re talking about. Rather than applying leeches to our ailments until the life blood is drained from society, we must ask the right questions of the right people to arrive at a just and practical conclusion.

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