COMMENTARY
 by Chris HayesStory of the Week, Up w/ Chris Hayes |
During one of the many fraught moments in the health care debate, when it looked like implacable and novel forms of GOP obstruction would kill the bill, writer Matt Yglesias the following tongue in cheek thought experiment to establish the point that just because you can do something according to, say, the letter of the law, doesn't mean it's acceptable. He wrote, "To the best of my understanding, nothing is stopping Rahm Emannuel from sauntering onto the floor of the Senate, murdering Republicans from states with Democratic governors in cold blood, having them replaced by new Democrats, and then getting a pardon from Barack Obama."
Matt's point was that norms matter. A lot.
Healthy governance isn't simply a matter of those with power playing by the technical boundaries of the rules in place, but also with some larger sense of respect for the norms of the institutions. There are certain things that just 'aren't done' even if they might very technically be permissible.
Indeed, norms are much more powerful than written, explicit rules, but the problem is that when norms go, they go very fast.
We've seen this inside Enron, and on Wall Street and in major league baseball during the steroids era. And we've seen it in governing institutions from the United States Congress to the Federal Elections Commission, where Republicans have normalized a maximalist, ceaseless, by-any-means necessary political battle. Where the Senate will deny confirmation for even the man nominated by Barack Obama to serve as Printer of the United States, or rush the country headlong towards default on its debt.
The actual official "rules" that guide the Supreme Court are preciously few in number. A majority of justices can pretty much issue any ruling they want, constrained by the (distant) threat perhaps of impeachment or a cut in funding from congress. But they are the final say on what is and is not constitutional.
And that's why the norms for the court are so important and the subject of such intense and constant debate. Should the court be like the House of Representatives—explicitly partisan and ideological place where a narrow majority is expected to vote more or less in lockstep for the favored outcomes of its "side"?
Or should judges be as John Roberts described them in his confirmation hearing. "Judges are like umpires. Umpires don't make the rules they apply them. I will remember that it's my job to call balls and strikes, and not to pitch or bat."
After joining the 5-4 majority to uphold the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, Roberts is getting a lot of grief from conservatives who fell in love with that metaphor, and now feel betrayed. You see the definition of an "activist" judge has always been a judge who rules differently than you would like, and this is the heart of the problem. The umpire analogy Roberts originally used is as laughably disingenuous as the slogan Fair and Balanced.
But that doesn't mean that the only choices for the court in conducting itself are some delusional vision of total neutrality on one hand and partisan trench warfare on the other. There's a whole lot of room in between those two extremes. And that's what our model of judging should be: someone with a worldview, a perspective, an outlook on life, but one who engages with the issues in good faith, who does not simply, and crudely reverse engineer his or her reasoning around a desired outcome.
Aside from his closest friends and family, no one can really know why John Roberts decided the way he did in the case of National Federation of Independent Business v Sebelius. But given how deft his decision was, how delicate a needle he threaded in simultaneously upholding the law, while also endorsing a quite conservative interpretation of the limits of the commerce clause, many have naturally come to the conclusion that Roberts' decision was motivated largely by a political and institutional desire to guard the court's—and his own—legitimacy.
So, while I think Roberts did the right thing, both as a matter of law and of politics, let's be clear, that this was inescapably a political decision. All major cases before the court can't help but be. Umpire Roberts was nowhere to be seen, but, of course, he never really existed.
In the short term, Roberts is to be credited both for upholding a law that is, in my own humble opinion and the opinion of the majority of prominent constitutional scholars, squarely constitutional. But he is also to be credited for briefly stopping a slide towards a court that truly is nothing other than the House of Representatives in miniature.
But let's also remember this is the same man who steered the court towards Citizens United, a man who oversees a court that is, according to an empirical analsysis by legal scholars Andrew Martin and Kevin Quinn, the most conservative court in 75 years. The question in the long run is if this decision signals a change of direction or simply a pause.
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Hi Chris.
I think that the lack of rules regarding the Supreme Court, and the distant possibility of some sort of recourse to correct an out-of-control Court, are symptomatic of what we could frame as missing struts in the system of checks and balances that constrain our federal government. When the system was defined, there were a different set of norms about other things as well. Among these norms were how people viewed the legitimacy of the government being established, and the attitudes that people in the employ of the government had towards what was thought of as the 'common good'. Some people today do not acknowledge that there is, or should be, a 'common good' to be protected.
It might be a useful exercise to ask people from the world of software, who understand logical systems, and people who work with dynamical systems such as interlocking ecosystems, to the show so you can explore the ways in which our system is not well-balanced, how it has been hacked, and what sorts of changes might be needed to make it more robust.
I write political short stories to explore such things, and I think Up would be a great venue to introduce people to another way to think about the constitution, politicians, and lobbyists.
Saturday UP with Chris Hayes was strong. I liked the facts, rytm, speed and dynamics. Sometimes it is like good art. Sometimes it is better than Sorkin, You dont have to walk fast and talk. It is more important that Chis´brains are working fast.
Most important is that the substance is usually so good. Minimum small talk.
Thank you with all my heart to you in the team who make this possible.
There is only ONE WAY to deal with authoritarians.
Authoritarians are ALWAYS maximalist because they do not believe in democracy. Sometimes they will even tell you so as Rush Limbaugh has *explicitly* stated he does not believe in it.
There is no limit to what the authoritarian Tea Party will do. They will go all the way to a right wing fascist dictatorship if permitted. Nor is there any civil means of dealing with authoritarians. You put them down, one way or another. You put them down.
Prior to the ACA decision, Justice Roberts had never sided with the Liberal wing of the Supreme Court. Not once. In 26 years of sitting on the bench, Justice Scalia has decided with Liberals twice. In 21 years, Justice Thomas has also only sided Liberals two times. Justice Kennedy, the so-called "moderate" has sided with Liberals a total of 25 times in twenty-four years. In more than six years since taking his seat on the Court, Justice Alito has never sided with Liberals.
The notion that these are impartial umpires is laughable. I wouldn't be expecting any change in direction from this court.
When I used to get samples from sites like "Official Samples" I would spend about $120 a week I thought that was good because I always shopped at Safeway and my receipt said I had saved 18 percent.
Keep going Chris
Is anyone still surprised that the corporate media spends all it's time talking around the Affordable Care Act instead of actually discussing the tenets of the bill? Anybody? Corporate media works for the corporate entities who don't want folks to actually understand the legislation. Corporate media [MSNBC] along with talking radio and Fox are all complicit in the lack of awareness and in the proliferation of nonsense and slander surrounding the Affordable Care Act. They all work for Wall Street and corporate America and try to present a brilliant facade of objectivity, MSNBC included. It's a fakeout. Major media is bought off by big insurance and oil interests and pharmaceutical companies, etc. MSNBC is bought. MSNBC hosts are bought. Corporate media is bought. Where are the courageous corporate media folks who will actually explain Healthcare Reform? Answer, they're bought. Chris Hayes pretty well admitted it. He's quickly morphed into just another corporate cog pretending to ber a journalist. If he wants to throw off his comfy corporate shackles, all he has to do is take time to explain the tenets of the legislation, but don't hold your breath. Corporate media {MSNBC} is a carefully contrived facade complete with corporate "liberals" like Schultz and Maddow, and with new additions like Chris Hayes and MHP in the corporate anti journalistic training program. Corporate media has dollar signs in it's eyes, along with corporate pundits. Consider this, all MSNBC corporate "liberals" on staff when Healthcare Reform passed ... opposed the Healthcare Reform Bill and would have settled for no legislation at all, which would have spared them all a tax hike. Think about it! Democrats know the truth, MSNBC is a fake, complete with fake Democrats like Schultz and Maddow. We can only hope that specially selected folks like Hayes and MHP and Alex Wagner don't end up selling their souls to the corporate store, but don't hold your breath. They were specially selected by corporate media and their sponsors. Gobama 2012!
This
is the fastest two hours on TV today. I love the fact that they concentrate on
one or two main issues for the whole show. You don't get that "we have to
leave it there" crap that occurs on almost every other discussion show. I
I'm
really looking forward to next week’s discussion of the book "It's Even
Worse Than it Looks" with Thomas Mann and Norm Ornstein.
reveal5,
I do agree with most everything you say about the corporate media chokehold on
our MSM. I would like to believe that Chris's show is shedding light on some
very important issues that get totally ignored by the MSM.
You
didn't hear a peep from the big 3 networks about the article in Fortune
Magazine discussing the real issues concerning the Fast and Furious program,
and what is behind the right wing nut jobs blaming it all on AG Holder. I'm
shocked I'll tell ya, shocked!
Mainstream
Media Keep Interviewing the Same "Small Business Owner" -- Who's
Being Put on the News by ALEC-Linked Group.
I tried to post the links but it ate my links!
I believe that the "what we know now" segment should be a list of what the ACA does for the country. I think that should be the content of the segment EVERY week till the election. I think not telling this part of the story has been a failing of progressives from day one.
All Americans, right, left, or center, need to come together to get money as far out of politics as we can. I have issues that are important to me but the only issues that will be addressed at this point are those concerns of the top 1%. Please America, put public financing as your top priority so your voices can be heard on other things that mater to you.
Love the show. Keep up the good fight.
The dream is to wake up one morning after Independence day and America is independent of the tyranny of Wall Street. We are stronger not just because we triumphed over the tyrants of the day, but their future progeny. We are stronger culturally because we are independent of the tyranny of head over heart, where the conversation is shut down and the heart can no longer inform the mind where its cold calculations are carrying it.
Up until now, we have been fighting a war of Independence of individualism versus sociocentrism. For some dissecting norms and morals, the group morality of the sociocentric list of "goods" is seen to be a collective form of tyranny over the masses- a means of thought control often based on supernatural premises. I am not referring to any particular variant of this proposition. People looking at this activity can't help but notice that conveniently, the elites in such systems have a get out of jail free card and really can indulge in whatever perversions of morality they please. Traditionally it was the corruption in the church pretty much from the time it religions got started, but it turned out that modern secular institutions were equally corruptible with even the righteousness of the most exalted football teams or heroes of capitalism now in serious question. It is increasing hard to ignore the trends: The parings of the victimizers and their enablers. The Sandusky-Patermo and the Wall street-Regulator pairings of those who are morally corrupt executing immoral acts in open view of those who are morally incapacitated.
That corruption and that incapacitation has a mechanism, and the social scientists have been attempting to unlock the mystery by looking at it empirically. There are two warring schools on norms, Kohlberg-Turiel versus Shweder-Haidt. What they both notice is that norms can be separated into two categories. An illustration make the sets clear:
What is interesting is that cross cultural studies confirm that the more educated one becomes, the more this distinction between the two sets emerges to the participants. It's not just adolescents engaged in a bacchanal "School's out for Summer", but the entire culture joins in singing along with Alice Cooper. The masses become enlightened and realize much of the norms are just conventions- a silly charade that have no foundation in absolutes. Indeed, many Sanduskys and Jaimie Dimons can push the envelope pretty far with what norms a mere convention, and therefore disposable in the face of their individualist will. They can convince themselves their acts are not immoral in the least, convincing themselves their victims are really victims of the tyranny of a delusion that they are freeing them from (if they would only listen to reason). They talk themselves into the positions, for example, that the boy they are raping actually has a hidden love for them and they are freeing them from the conventions that tells them not to express that love. Or the Dimons- that they are simply engaging in educating others about the school of hard knocks. If you want to get smart, you can rise in the order of the fittest- an order of Social Darwinism where there are winners and losers. The lesson the Dimons are helpfully offering is not to be a loser.
The Dimons and the Sanduskys have their independence. They are free from the norms. This was explored another book whose title is not coincidentally similar to Hayes. It is odd no one shows even vague interest in talking about directly. Perhaps the unwashed masses of their readers have been pigeon holed as being too unsophisticated to consider Nietzche's notion of the overman who has risen above the shackles of moralistic rationales that culturally restrain them from the truth. He called it the twilight of the idols.
Anyway, science is rapidly delivering empirical data that supports or dismisses these theoretical constructs. It is like physics- theoretical physicists gin up outlandish accounts of reality, and they experimental physicists go out to figure out who is right- to prove or disprove the models. To a lesser extent this is what members of the social sciences do with theoretical philosophical models of how the world works.
For those of you who are nodding off due to the "psycho- philosophical" "pretentious" babble, bear with me. This has practical political impact. That relationship I was talking about between the two sets having a relationship to education? It has a lot to do with what is going on with the Santorum home schooling/ shut down the Universities because they are factories of liberalism-immoralism. What the sociologists from both of those factions know is that the less educated you are, the less you see any distinction between a convention like wearing your clothes a certain way, and committing what cultures agree are immoral acts- like stealing or injuring others.
Santorum's is the wet dream of the old order, because as the services of the middle class are no longer needed due to the forces of automation and outsourcing, large numbers of highly educated workers are now obsolete and places like the University of Virginia can no longer economically justify generating them. And its true- as David Autor at MIT has shown, if you graph the job increases and losses against salaries, the graph is a U shape, with lots of opportunities at the low end, a few for elites at the high end to run the computer models, robots, and manage the outsourced labor operations for the uber uber elites. Market forces are rapidly making Romney-Bain folks rich as they chew up middle class supporting operations as food, and "creating" highly efficient operations where there are much more low paying jobs, and much greater benefits for those in the high paying jobs.
What's really "Cool" about this, is that by shoving the workers down into lower educated positions, they cling more to sociocentric conventions. This is really tidy, because Louis XVI had a FOX news- it was called the Church. The problem was that it did not tightly ride the hatreds and dark emotions of the masses like the Rush Limbaughs, and Michael Savages can. So the Church lost its monopoly on truth and the people listened to others who hooked into the frustrations and bitterness of the enormous uneducated lower classes.
Ironically, the new Church is using themes of liberty as they march the masses back to servitude. I don't think any of this is any deliberate or well thought out overall plan to this. It is just where the cultural and unfettered economic forces are sweeping us. If there were no Bain, Romney or Santorum, the forces will find some other individual to ride their wave. The fact is that high technology is not labor intensive. Global labor competition (thanks bill clinton), means the work that can be exported will. It's just cheaper to automate and offshore. Doesn't take a malevolent genius to see how to make more profits, and that after all, is what economies are for, right? Right? But the outcome of this is that the US middle class is obsolete. The education facilities are being defunded of public revenues, and the people are getting the message that they are paying enormous amounts of money to pay their children to get educations for jobs that the new economy has no need for. I'm not saying there is no need for robot maintenance folks, but look look. Technology does not inherently create labor intensive operations like the 19th and 20th centuries. The costs of production are in human labor, and advanced technology in artificial intelligence is eliminating the even need for what were once highly skilled analytical jobs.
Nothing politically is going to stop this unless you appreciate the economic and sociological forces driving it. The trouble is that these bedrock principles that are shifting tectonically are fashionably disparaged as psycho-punditry, or produce the kind of heated and arcane economic debates that are the surest ticket to low ratings.
You guys at MSNBC are smart. Figure out how to keep them interested. Personally, I could care less if you buy my take on particular properties- like why I think it is crucial to making progressives understand the empirical science about how norms work socially. Our opponents understand these forces very well, and are using them. We sit buy and generate limp appeals for general norms, which philosophically have no chance of resonating across both camps.
If we start to examine anything at this level, people understand how powerful and practical the analysis is. We can just keep plowing on with tired narratives about how the Luntz's of the world are deluding the masses to vote against their interests. If that narrative was correct, then the last 4 decades of empirical and personal evidence of the delusion and devastating consequences of the conservatives should have been convincing to the American public. But this narrative has utterly failed to predict their reactions.
This is not the day after Independence day we imagined.
I realize I did not get to the Kohlberg-Turiel versus Shweder-Haidt findings and why they are important. But given the usual patterns, the time folks are reading the thread is after the show, and by now- just 3 days after the posting- consideration of the ideas and participation in discussion falls off a cliff. So I with only 9 responses, I get the feeling this discussion has been closeted off.
Anyway, if anyone is interested, click the up arrow in the lower right of my note above. If not, thank you for your time to consider my thoughts on this matter. Taking that time to consider other views is sometimes not cheap but is essential for our democracy, so I really mean it. Thanks.
Hayes’ proposed norm for making judgments has language insufficient for establishing common ground with the right:
Consider the logic of the proposition. If the source of the desire for these outcomes is a reasoned position, then there is no violation of his proposed norm. It follows then that what Hayes is proscribing are positions which have come from the heart not the head. Under this model, it is a moral violation if the reasoning produced is predetermined by desire. That is, regardless what their gut instinct tells them is right, they must not simply construct rationales in a post hoc way to conform to those instincts.
That is a rationalist norm, it is a reasonable position to take and it is one that Hayes holds dear. The trouble is that if you expect everyone in society to adhere to the norm, then you need it to be based on common ground assumptions. Hayes' does not. There are more sophisticated points of view that allow for such common ground. These are uncomfortable for the religious since they accommodate atheists and those of other faiths. They are uncomfortable for atheists since they accommodate views they understandibly regard as silly hocus pocus.
Norms for a pluralistic society are tough, and this resonates with Obama's call to renewal speech in 2007. As of yet, what Hayes implicitly expects is that the prerequisite for social harmony is for people to all convert to the rationalist head over heart religion.