Have you ever wondered: is Congress too ethical? Are our legislators suffering under the weight of overly prudish ethics rules? Do they need to have less oversight in order to do the people's business? The Republican House leadership thinks so. Flexing its partisan muscle in the 109th Congress, Republicans forced through rules changes to make it more difficult for House members to be investigated for ethics violations. Does this strike anyone -- and I'm looking at you, "moral values" voters -- as just a bit odd?
One would expect that red state constituents (to the extent that they will even hear about this) would be outraged. The reality-based community will be bowled over by the overwhelming stink of hypocrisy; candidates campaigning on moral values, winning by cravenly attacking the honesty and integrity of their opponents, who then immediately wield their new power to hide their own moral weakness. They promised higher ethical standards and they're reneging, aren't they? But the faith-based will see it differently. There are two principles in play here.
Rules are for bad people. Although they pay it lip service, the philosophical bedrock of the faith-based community is in opposition to the rule of law. While we who put our stock in reality apply rules equally to everyone and take any rule-breaking as evidence of foul play, the faith-based care less about actions and outcomes than thoughts and intentions. Starting from the assumption that some people are good and others bad, they believe it righteous to impose strong rules to restrict "bad" people while giving "good" people free reign. We end up with zero tolerance for some and the honor system for others, with only ideology as the deciding factor.
This creeping elitism gives us such institutionalized double standards as three strikes laws that put people in jail for 25 years for stealing a bicycle, while serial pedophiles get off with a hand slap because they happen to be priests. When the cops end the rich white kid's joyride he's let off with a warning since boys will be boys; the poor black kid doing the same thing is a hooligan and goes to jail. Since the red staters have been told for years that liberals are evil, it stands to reason that those who oppose them, the conservatives, are necessarily good. Republicans don't need strong rules on them since they will do good just because they are good. Likewise if changing the rules takes away power from the evil Democrats, then that must also be good. Ironically the Republicans can cite the large numbers of ethics charges filed against Republicans to argue that the rule changes weaken their opponents.
Out of sight, out of mind. Denial is not just a fleeting state of mind for the faith-based, it's a way of life. No matter how strongly we may believe in something, reality can -- and very often does -- give us evidence that contradicts that belief. In the reality-based community we have the ability, even the duty, to examine evidence objectively and to integrate it into our understanding of the world. If we have to change our beliefs, that's fine. Faith is the opposite. The job of the faithful is to ensure that all evidence is properly subsumed into belief so that their ideology remains unchallenged by evidence. Denial is a key tool. For any troubling fact, the faith-based can simply say, "I just don't believe it."
The creationists battle against evolution is a great example of a denial movement. Far from trying to challenge the scientific reality of evolution on its own terms, creationism attempts instead, through political action, to obscure the facts about evolutionary theory. During much of the previous century teaching evolution was illegal. More recently the method has been to muddy the waters by getting "Creation Science" taught side-by-side with evolution in biology classes. If they can simply close their eyes to evolution, either by ignoring it or by provided a more faith-friendly alternative, then the problem is gone. Denial in action. It's no surprise that the House ethics rule change did not directly weaken ethic standards themselves, but rather made it more difficult for charges to be heard. If the charge can be denied, then there was clearly no violation.
These two principles underlie a lot of conservative tactics: framing the agenda as good vs. evil to justify asymmetric executive power, and hiding, obfuscating or obscuring any information that might undermine ideology. These two prongs can be easily identified in the talking points provided Alberto Gonzales for his recent testimony. It is not simply possible, however, for those of us who oppose this regime to adopt their methods. The turnabout won't work. These principles are an affront to both truth and justice, and to fall back on the same ourselves would lose the very things for which we fight.
- jack*
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