Wednesday, May 30, 2012
The Rumble in the Rada
I feel an army in my fist
— Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller, _The
Robbers_
It was a particularly refreshing sight and, one can hope, may be treated as a didactic moment for the United States Congress. If adopted many of the problems it faces would disappear and Congress could return to doing what it was elected to do.
Kiev in the Ukraine has not always set an example that the United States would want to follow. It was, until 1991, a part of the Soviet Union and during that time, there was little about how its legislature worked that caused anyone to think the United States Congress should follow in its footsteps. That was then-this is now. Following its separation from Russia there have been two occasions on which that country has given us an example our Congress should follow. The first pertains to its conduct of elections.
On July 24, 2009, Verkhovna Rada, the Ukrainian Parliament, amended the law on elections. It shortened the time during which campaigning could take place from 150 days to 90 days. If the 150 day rule obtained in the United States current campaigns would only have begun the end of May. If the 90 day rule were in place, the campaigns would not begin until the end of July. That would be a welcome change to the United States system and is the first example set by Verkhovna Rada. The second, and more compelling example that the U.S. Congress should adopt was offered on May 25, 2012.
May 25 was the day that the Verkhovna Rada was debating the highly charged issue over Ukraine’s official language policy. The specific issue was whether the Russian language should have the formal status of a second language in approximately one-half of the regions in the Ukraine, including Kiev. The east and south of the Ukraine are Russian-speaking and want closer ties to Moscow whereas the west is Ukrainian speaking and favors closer ties to the west. It is not surprising that the debate about this highly sensitive issue was emotional. And because it was so emotional it is useful to compare how the Verkhovna Rada dealt with it and how the United States Congress would deal with it.
If a similar issue were presented in the United States, it would go before the Senate and those supporting it would make speeches expressing their great admiration for those opposing it and attributing to them nothing but the highest motives and would infuse their speeches with such high praise for their opponents as to leave no doubt that everyone in the U.S. Senate was everyone else in the Senate’s very very best friend. Those very very best friends would, of course, end up on opposite sides of the issue and unless 60 out of 100 very very best friends in the Senate were in favor of the legislation, it would go nowhere. In the House of Representatives there are 435 representatives who are also very very best friends and speak glowingly of their colleagues even when those very very best friends are preventing their very very best friends from getting any legislation passed. The result of the foregoing is that for the last 3-½ years, the United States Congress has spent almost all its productive time while on vacation because at least its members are having fun. The Ukrainian parliament suggests a wonderful alternative to the sham politeness that infuses the United States Congress.
On May 25 its members could not agree on how to resolve their differences on adoption of Russian as a second language. The proponents and opponents of the legislation did not make lengthy speeches expressing their admiration and fondness for one another. Instead, Vadim Kolesnichenko, the author of the legislation said opponents said to him “You’re a corpse, you have two days left to live, we will crucify you on a birch tree.” Those less than compromising words were accompanied by fisticuffs in the hallowed halls of the legislative chamber, that sent at least one member of the parliament to the hospital. Another is seen being hoisted in the air and passed from hand to hand until finally deposited unceremoniously on the ground. (A BBC video of the event can be viewed online.)
The difference between what went on in Verkhovna Rada and what goes on in Congress is there is a total absence of pretense in the former. Elimination of pretense is not the only benefit that would accrue to the U.S. Congress were it to follow Verkhovna Rada’s example.
The possibility of brawling being used to resolve differences among legislators would eliminate from Congress members who treat their elections as entitlement to serve life terms. If fisticuffs were the norm in resolving legislative standoffs, members in their 70s and 80s would conclude that legislative work was something more suited to the young. Cspan viewership would increase dramatically attracting those who though not drawn to politics, would enjoy watching melees in the legislative chambers. Some may think such conduct would demean the institution. That assumes its reputation can sink to lower levels than it now enjoys. It can’t.
Friday, May 25, 2012
Immigrants and Birth Certificates
bq. Practical politics consists in ignoring facts.— Henry Brooks Adams, The Education of Henry AdamsTwo bits of bad news to dampen any cheer earlier reports might have warranted. It is accompanied by one bit of good news. The bad news comes from Alabama and Iowa. The good news comes from Arizona, a state normally known as a bellwether for bad news.
Early in Alabama’s 2012 legislative session it appeared that the legislature would correct some of the most egregious aspects of the legislation passed in 2011 to control the state’s unwanted immigrant population. Among the revisions considered was the one that required schools to verify the citizenship of each student enrolled in school. Another was the one that required officers who stopped anyone to check on the citizenship of the person irrespective of whether or not that person was issued a citation or arrested. Sadly, the law signed by Alabama’s governor earlier this month retains the requirement that schools check on the citizenship of their students. As a result, on the first day of school teachers will ask all students who are illegal immigrants to raise their hands. The new law also retained the provision that police could check the citizenship status of anyone they stopped irrespective of whether a citation was issued or an arrest made. So much for Alabama.
Arizona, too, is back in the news but by the skin of its teeth, the news is good. Arizona’s House Bill 2177 was passed by the Arizona legislature in 2011. Known as the birther bill it required that for a presidential candidate’s name to appear on the Arizona ballot the candidate would have to prove that he or she was a natural born U.S. citizen. Under the bill each candidate was required to present an affidavit stating his or her age and citizenship, present a long form birth certificate and, for good measure, a statement describing where the candidate has lived for 14 years. Absent a long form birth certificate, the statutory requirement was permitted to be fulfilled by a candidate presenting an “early baptismal or circumcision certificate.” It is not clear if instead of a circumcision certificate the candidate, if a male, would have been permitted to simply present the appropriate appendage to the certifying authority that could by visual inspection determine whether or not the procedure had been performed. In all events, it turned out that it doesn’t matter.
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, who has been willing to sign lots of whacky legislation, drew the line at this one. In vetoing the bill she said she couldn’t imagine requiring candidates for the highest office in the land to present “early baptismal or circumcision certificates. . . . This measure creates significant new problems while failing to do anything constructive for Arizona.” Some thought that would put that particular measure to rest. Some were wrong.
On May 18, 2012, Arizona Secretary of State, Ken Bennett, said that before permitting Barack Obama’s name to appear on the ballot as a presidential candidate, he wants proof of the president’s birthplace. In a statement released to the press he disclaimed any hint of nuttiness. He said: “First, I have been on the record since 2009 that I believe the president was born in Hawaii. I am not a birther. At the request of a constituent, I asked the state of Hawaii for a verification in lieu of a certified copy. We’re merely asking them to officially confirm they have the president’s birth certificate in their possession and are awaiting their response.” Mr. Bennett may have wanted this because Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio announced at a new conference on March 1, 2012 that an investigation under his supervision had determined that the birth certificate released by the White House was a “computer generated forgery.” (Mr. Arpaio has just been indicted by the Justice Department for a variety of alleged criminal activities, but that is no reason to doubt the quality of his investigation into the authenticity of Mr. Obama’s birth certificate). The good news is that Hawaii has now confirmed to Mr. Bennett’s satisfaction that Mr. Obama was born in Hawaii. That is cause for celebration among almost all who have questioned it up until now. Among those neither celebrating nor convinced are Republicans in Iowa.
Iowa is best remembered (aside from the fact that it put Rick Santorum in first place in its recent primary) when in 2010 voters threw out three Supreme Court Justices who had joined in a unanimous decision that legalized same sex marriage in Iowa. On May 21, 2012, the chairman of the Iowa GOP platform committee told a waiting world that the committee decided to include a plank in its platform affirming its belief that “candidates for President. . . must show proof of being a ‘natural born citizen’ as required by . . .the Constitution.” As this is written it is not known if the platform committee will reconsider, given Arizona’s news. Probably not. It would spoil a birther’s day to be influenced by facts.
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Mitt the Barber and the Church
A great devotee of the Gospel of Getting On.
—G.B. Shaw, Mrs. Warren’s Profession
I hope he remembers them. The explanations that is. They could be handy if anyone ever asks him about his days as a missionary. Of course it’s possible that no one will since everyone is reluctant to bring religion into what is an otherwise very civilized campaign for the presidency. Nonetheless, the answers he recently gave may prove handy if anyone ever does.
The answers to which I refer are the ones he gave when asked about his assault on John Lauber, a boy who had bleached blond hair draped over one eye. A friend recalled Mitt saying: “He can’t look like that. That’s wrong. Just look at him.” And with those words Mitt the Barber and a group of friends gave a haircut to John Lauber who according to participants was distressed at the assault and cried and screamed for help, to no avail. When asked about it on Fox news, Mitt said he “did not recall the incident.” . Philip Maxwell, a Michigan lawyer, who participated was astonished that Mitt had forgotten saying “I would think this would be seared in his memory. Certainly for the other people that were involved, nobody has forgotten.”
I am not surprised that Mitt does not remember the Lauber incident since, as his classmates have pointed out, it was only one of a number of teen age pranks that amused Mitt, if not his victims. It would be more interesting, however, to engage Mitt in a theological discussion and explanation of his feelings about spreading the word of the Mormon religion in foreign lands when the official doctrine of that church considered people of black skin to be inferior beings.
Mitt “went to France in 1966 as a Mormon missionary. He served there for 30 months. While working as a missionary he rose at 6 a.m. each day and rang doorbells from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. hoping to convert the residents to the Mormon faith. While going door-to-door one of the things he might have been called upon to explain was why people with black skin were not as welcome in the Mormon Church as people with white skin. For almost a century before Mitt became a missionary, blacks of African lineage could not join the Mormon priesthood. Brigham Young announced in 1852 in a speech to the Utah Territorial Legislature that: “Any man having one drop of the seed of [Cain] . . . in him cannot hold the Priesthood and . . . I will say it now in the name of Jesus Christ I know it is true and others know it.” This official treatment of the black as inferior to the white was church doctrine throughout the time Mitt was propagating its faith and until 1978. During that time not only could male persons of black African ancestry not hold the priesthood but they could not participate in some temple ordinances nor in celestial marriage.
It is commonly accepted that attacks on people’s religions is not fair game and that in a campaign for the presidency discussion of the candidate’s faith should be kept off the front burner and talked about only in hushed tones. Thus, it was accepted by most commentators (except right-wing-nut Fox equivalents) that if John Kennedy became president, the Pope in Rome would not be dictating foreign policy. And this column is not to suggest that if Mitt were to become president, people in secret temples in Salt Lake City would exert control over his actions. It is simply to assume that having so easily put aside his assault on John he can with equal facility explain what he said to folks in France when he was knocking on their doors trumpeting the virtues of the Mormon faith, thus reassuring us all.
When, in 1978, Spencer W. Kimball, the president of the church, announced that he had had a revelation from God saying that every faithful and worthy man in the church “may be ordained to the priesthood without regard for race or color” Mitt heard the news over his car radio. He said he pulled over and cried because he was so happy. However, he did not protest the policy prior to the revelation to Mr. Kimball. As he explained: “The way things are achieved in my church, as I believe in other great faiths, is through inspiration from God and not through protests and letters to the editor.” Mitt participated in civil rights marches with his father and professed concern for civil rights. How he could encourage people to join a church one of whose most significant tenets ran counter to what he believed is hard to understand. Unless, of course, he simply flip-flopped. Or, perhaps, he doesn’t remember what the church believed when he was a missionary and just considers that bigoted belief an “incident.” He has to consider himself lucky that the Lord saw fit to give Mr. Kimball a revelation back in 1978. Had He waited until 2012 it would almost certainly ruin Mitt’s chance to become president. As it is, it simply leaves one wondering what Mitt REALLY believed back when he was a missionary.