This blog began with the fiftieth anniversary of the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, and the express purpose of telling the stories of ordinary men and women doing extraordinary things without regard for recognition or reward. It has evolved into lessons about governance and citizenship as well as stories about courage, compassion, and sacrifice. In May 2014, this blog begins to feature those who have little but persevere.
1988, it [voter turnout] has fluctuated, from a low of 52.6% of eligible voters
(and 49.1% of voting age population) in 1996 to a high of 61% of eligible
voters in 2004, the highest level since 1968."
About half of the eligible voters decide outcomes that will
determine the nature of the Supreme Court, the collegiality of Congressmen and
women, the role that our nation will play in the world, and the social,
economic and physical health of our citizens. One of every two voters will vote
and determine our futures.
Look at the person standing on your right.
Now look left.
Think about your relatives.
Can you honestly say that you are just
fine, completely content to let those folks shape your future?
Then vote! Vote
November 6, 2012.
Vote with all the information and intelligence you can bring
Your life, your well-being, and the future of this nation
depend upon it. Vote!
Last week, I wrote about school bullies and giving your children a bit of armor to protect themselves. This week, I wish to consider intimidation as a factor in the outcome of the 2012 election, especially because employers are exercising undue influence over their employees' votes.
I grant that intimidation is a tool in our culture. The arms race is a form of intimidation. The country with the most offensive tools stays ahead of its competition. Athletes step onto the field and into arenas, fully aware that size and an icy glare may win the contest before it's begun. We even coach our kids to stand tall in the face of intimidation and to become adept at intimidation as a means to an end. We also expect college professors, especially in law
schools invented in Hollywood, to intimidate their
teachers, on the other hand, avoid intimidation. They understand that like justices on the bench, they must
be impartial and fair as they wield power. What teachers know
and how well they share their knowledge will affect future presidents,
physicians, attorneys, and long-distance bicyclists. If teachers lack ethics
and civility, then their charges learn to be unethical and incivil.
also wield power. Theirs is power over the livelihood and security of their
employees. The CEO, CFO, and Chairman of the Board may not become involved in
day-to-day operations such as hiring, firing, and work assignments, but no one
doubts their clout should they wish to become involved, especially in smaller
communities where one’s loyalties, social connections, and off-the-clock activities
are more easily and widely known. But in communities large and small, especially now that employers routinely search Facebook posts, an employee can be released if his
political allegiance diverges from the company’s.
repeat: it is legal to terminate a
person’s employment if he supports a candidate that the boss does not. If an employee wears a t-shirt imprinted with a candidate's name to work, proselytizes for a candidate in the break room, or knocks on doors after work to hand out campaign literature, he may find himself applying for unemployment benefits
sputter, we have free speech guarantees in this nation. And yes, yes, we do, but 49
(a big 98%) states are at-will employment states. In other words, you serve at the will of your employer’s need and
even political whim. Only Montana requires that an employer show cause for
terminating an employee (“10 Workplace Rights You Think You Have -- But Don’t”
by Donna Ballman, 3 May 2011 at http://jobs.aol.com/ articles/2011/05/03/10-workplace-rights-you-think-you-have-but-don’t).
sputter once more, we have federal protections, don’t we? The Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission rules, the Lily Ledbetter law, Affirmative Action
guidelines, a Federal Trade Commission. Wouldn’t one of those commissions or
laws protect me?
how long do you have? Do you have 17 years lying around to wait upon justice? That's how many years Lily Ledbetter waited upon it. She learned that she was paid less than her
male counterparts in 1992. She sued later and pursued her case to the Supreme Court. It ruled against her and sided with Goodyear Tire in 2007 because Ledbetter did not sue within 180 days of
becoming aware of the pay discrepancy. Two years later, in 2009, President Obama signed the Lily
Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, nullifying the 180-mandate for any and all who follow in Ledbetter's footsteps.
Another Supreme Court decision, Citizens
United, and its implementation have provided employers
with the freedom to direct how employees should vote, and candidate
Romney has taken full advantage of that ruling. In the now often replayed
conference call to small business owners, former Governor Romney tells his
listeners to advise their employees about which candidate to support and to tell
their family members how to vote (http://www.slate. com/blogs/the_slatest/2012/10/18/romney_s_nfib_call_gop_hopeful_tells_employers_to_tell_ employees_who_to.html). He has that right.
But such a right calls into question the rhetoric of some GOP Attorneys General and Governors who have argued against early
voting, even going so far as to claim that large groups traveling to the polls
together will unduly influence voters to vote as a block? Yet those officials have not expressed concern about any undue influence if employers advise employees for whom to vote.
Certainly, large groups traveling together to vote may affect outcomes in
the same way that folks traveling to national conventions may affect outcomes.
The people go because they already share interests and convictions and those
undecided among them may even be so grateful for the opportunity to participate
that they will allow themselves to be led in this most sacred of citizen
responsibilities. Human relationships are complicated, and the reasons for
supporting one candidate over another are legion, a truth that campaign
strategists prey upon every day.
Those strategists dance around ethical dilemmas and spin their candidates into the images they
believe we voters want to see. They calculate whether direct mailing or robo-calls are
effective. They send candidates out to shake hands and kiss babies because close human interaction is
powerfully persuasive. They craft messages that will dazzle
listeners even if they distort facts and invent outright lies.
I am free,
however, to toss the candidates' direct mail in the trash. I can slam the phone down on
the latest recorded message. I can stay away from rallies and conventions. And
I can read, read, read in order to detect distortions and lies. I can discern
the spin and vote according to the best interests of this nation as I
I cannot, however, easily ignore an employer’s real or implied and legal threat to eliminate my
job. My well-being and my children’s well-being depend upon a job. Whatever
social nets exist for the unemployed and underemployed, they are insufficient.
It’s my duty to hang on to a job that provides for my family, pays my mortgage, and fuels
Thus, when an employer preys upon human
relationships and issues real or implied and legal threats to eliminate my job
if I support the wrong candidate, he exercises undue influence, and he should be prevented from doing so. He is not
different from a classroom teacher who behaves in such as way as to fail a
student if the student has the naked temerity to think, write, and reason in ways
antithetical to the teacher. And an employer is not different from police officers who bully citizens into confessions regardless of
the evidence. We have protections in place because we believe authority
figures should not unduly influence students or citizens whether they are
seven, seventeen, twenty, or forty-five. We deserve protections for voters, too.
right to vote must remain sacrosanct.
The right to the privacy of your vote is invaluable.
The right to vote your conscience must be inviolable.
So even if your employer has a legal right to tell you how to
vote, that employer is unethical.
Unfortunately, right now, workers must protect themselves. They must keep their convictions to themselves.
Ain’t that a shame in a nation that holds the right to free speech
as sacrosanct?Employees ought to be as free as their employers to speak
their minds and argue their case.
Public schools are microcosms, little mirror images of the society at
large. Along those halls walk adults under construction, and they carry with
them the attitudes and codes of their own communities. If they leave from a
home where sarcasm reigns, then the chances are good that the child will be
sarcastic at school. If children come from a family that laughs with each
other, then they will probably have a more keenly developed sense of humor.
But all is not Nurture as parents of large families will quickly tell
you. Nature has an equal claim to the child. The same genetic mingling may
produce an extrovert and an introvert, a heterosexual and a homosexual, and
these children must make their way in school where understanding is also under
construction. Young boys and girls, adolescents, and teenagers seek their own
identities and purposes day after day. They test the values and principles that
their families hold dear. Often that testing involves comparing and contrasting
A few peers seem destined to be picked last for everything simply
because they are perceived as different. Their skin color stands out, they are
shorter or taller than everyone else, their taste in clothing diverges from the
current trend, their vocabularies are bigger, their imaginations boundless,
their speech halting or lisping. These different kids endure teasing from the
larger group; they become the bullied.
My own daughter endured verbal insults. She sprouted taller than her
peers in elementary school. Of course, the others caught up and sometimes
surpassed her by high school, but those interim years were rough, especially
after she developed severe acne several years ahead of her peers. One young boy, who
later developed the sort of acne that makes high school kids miserable, often
insulted my child.
I told her that I understood how much it hurts and explained that few
people stand up to hurtful words and gestures without some doubt or fear
wiggling through the gut. I told her to ignore the hurtful words, not to
believe them, not to give them any power over her, but I knew she would take
the hurtful words to heart anyway. How many of us are so sure of ourselves that
we never feel the sting of insults and judgments?
I talked to my child about her strengths and talents, about her good
heart, reassuring her that character matters more than appearance, but her
certainty about real beauty was years away. She needed affirmation from people
besides parents. She didn’t and couldn’t trust her parents to be completely
So I offered her a retort--words that she could use when that snarky,
insecure boy said, “Nice pimples.”
I told her to say, “Thanks for seeing the real me.” And it worked. He
never repeated his insult again. Apparently a conscience was under construction in
Probably more important, this exchange took place just as my daughter
and her tormentor were rushing to science class. The teacher overheard the
exchange and said to my daughter, loud enough for him to overhear, “I like what
you had to say. That shows real maturity.”
I am still grateful to that teacher for paying attention and speaking
up. Kids need to hear from people other than Mom and Dad. The judgment of
outsiders is so important to them as they go through separation phases, and
this outsider was a trusted authority figure. Her opinion mattered and made my
child smile. She also felt good enough about her retort to use it again
whenever the need arose.
Be assured that I don’t believe for a minute that the young tormentor
was a bad child from a bad home. He was simply still growing and learning to
discern. He wasn’t yet sure for what and whom to stand. He needed more time to
cook as a human being, and he turned out just fine, at least through high
school, post-puberty, perhaps because his own acne humbled him.
My daughter turned out better than fine. Those days of being different
are still part of her character, but they have helped her learn empathy.
They also made her stronger and more sure of her true self.
If I could
create the world, no child would ever doubt his worth and beauty. All children
would have equal opportunities to fulfill the promise that lies within them. But since many children endure insults and baseless judgments, teach
them to value the “real person” in themselves and others. It’s a timeless
lesson, one that must be taught, re-taught, and taught once more through each
phase and stage of childhood, adolescence, young adulthood and beyond.
“All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in
every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind”
(Adam Smith, An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations).
Real and fictional events
support Adam Smith’s rather bleak portrait of mankind’s masters. Consider:
·Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness wherein the narrator explains the imperialistic thrust into
Africa and the systematic enslavement of men. The ivory company literally
worked the men to death because men, like ivory, seemed to them an
inexhaustible resource, certainly less than human.
·The real-world legacy of such fiction was
apartheid, a systematic enslavement of people of color. Nelson Mandela suffered
under its yoke for decades. Bishop Tutu brought the world’s attention to the
daily inequities and cruelties that prevented growth and prosperity.
·Charles Taylor, Idi Amin, Adolph Hitler, and
Slobodan Milosevic are but a few leaders who have practiced genocide in order
to obtain and retain power.
·Sarah Vowel’s Wordy Shipmates records the slaughter of Native Americans by spreading disease or
worse, mass executions in the name of the holy Father above and in the belief
that brown-skinned, non-Christian people were lesser beings. They were only heathens.
·Jonathan Swift exposed the callous disregard for
human lives that swore allegiance to the Roman Catholic Church in a bitter
satiric essay, “A Modest Proposal.” In it, he cites the real excuses in Britain
for not helping a starving, poor Irish people, and those excuses were spoken in
Parliament by men who claimed to hold God in their hearts.
·The U. S. Supreme Court found segregation, with
all its legal and illegal methodologies, sound and appropriate until it did
not. In between, domestic terrorism in the form of the Ku Klux Klan and
economic sanctions imprisoned a race in the land of the free.
tell the tale of Adam Smith’s cynical point of view. They prove that when given
license to take, even the best men (or women) will take. Indeed, the practice
has such a long-standing tradition in the affairs of men that it has been given
a euphemistic name: social Darwinism. Moreover, social Darwinism is alive and
well in this century in this, the greatest
country on earth, according to conventions held at the behest of political parties.
the Affordable (Health) Care Act (ACA), more commonly and derisively known as
Obamacare, has included live film footage of well-dressed men, crisp in their
laundered cotton shirts and perfectly pressed khaki pants, throwing money at a
disabled man supporting the ACA. The opposing hue and cry included shouts from
a crowd when Representative Ron Paul was asked if we, as a people bound
together by geography and citizenship, should allow our fellow man to die if he
has no health coverage. Even Mr. Paul was not inclined to accede to the
hypothetical man’s death, but the crowd was. They made that clear with a loud
“Yes!” in answer to the question.
More civil debaters have acknowledged the shame of not caring for our brothers in
America, but, those speakers
hasten to add: what can we do in such economic times? Those who work hard and can
afford good health coverage should have the best; those who cannot (and here
they shake their heads in a mock show of pity) will suffer.
How often have
we Main Street-ers heard that we simply cannot afford to do the right thing whether
the right thing is . . . ?
·Improve our road beds
·Make our bridges safe
·Compete on the world stage by investing in the
latest technologies to deliver power to cities, businesses, and people reliably
·Compete on the world stage to research and
develop efficient, high-speed, energy-sipping transportation
·Make wider and better use of wind energy or
·Care for the needy
·Help our veterans back to full employment and
health upon return
·Provide for the First Responders
·Insure that the elderly live their last years in
The list above
is only a short, partial exemplary one. Opponents to doing the right thing have
often trotted out the same tired excuses for any number of other human issues,
saying we can’t afford to do this right now, that government should be small, that private enterprise must deliver solace to those in need, and even that private enterprise can do the job better than government.
But the net
effect is Social Darwinism, also known as social engineering and survival of
the fittest. Representative
Paul Ryan’s fondness for Ayn Rand is a perfect example. He claims that those
with talent and drive should be rewarded while those who stumble should fall
further. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel reportedly wrote off whole swaths of
Chicago’s school children, claiming that they’ll never rise to the level where
educated men and women create opportunities by learning and doing. A local
Oklahoma lobbyist dismissed those same children as turds in the punch bowl. Both men were talking about poor children, and both seem
willing to let them die off because they simply cannot adapt well enough or
quickly enough to thrive.
and legendary Atticus Finch would ask us to do right, to be better human
beings. He would fight for the rights of those most oppressed, those in need.
In fact, he did. Won’t you?
In late July, 2012, C-Span released film of you, declaring
that “people are intelligent and can discern the true from the false . . . when
[they] know who’s speaking.” I’m not sure you’re right, Sir. After all, in
2003, intelligent people, including members of Congress, leaders of many allied
nations, cable news reporters, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, and
ordinary citizens, failed to “discern the true from the false” when free
expression persuaded the United States to smite Iraq in a preemptive strike.
Before the deaf ears and blind eyes of supposedly alert, watchful, and
intelligent people, the Bush administration ordered a reign of terror upon
Iraq; we killed 162,000 soldiers on both sides insurgents, ordinary
citizens, civilian personnel, and children because no one could “discern the
true from the false.” Someone yelled “WMD,” the equivalent of shouting “Fire”
in a crowded theater, and 162,000 died.
On the Piers Morgan program (CNN), also in July 2012, you,
Mr. Scalia, reiterated the First Amendment privileges of this nation and
assured the listening audience that Thomas Jefferson, whom you greatly admire,
would agree with you in asserting that “the more speech the better.” You added in
answer to Mr. Morgan’s question about the Citizens United decision that no one
can “separate the speech from the money that facilitates the speech.”
I wasn’t sure about that claim until I realized that humans
make manifest their thoughts in not only words but also in actions. For
example, my thoughts on ice cream and frozen yogurt are well-known to anyone
who knows the contents of my freezer or anything about my buying habits. So it
follows that the products I consume and purchase are extensions of my
inner-most thoughts, and I confess that my thoughts get me into trouble often. It’s
just not healthy to be preoccupied with ice cream; it’s especially unhealthy to
consume too much ice cream.
This realization led me to reflect upon what limits should
be set for free expression. We already know that no one can shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater and jeopardize life, but should the Nazi party march and speak
in Skokie, IL, home to the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center, or
should historical precedent lead reasonable men and women to conclude that the
Nazi party’s intentions and actions could derive from hatred? If so, then
surely we should censor the Nazis. We should disallow their march, suppress
their speech, and curtail any potential and probable violence stemming from
But we didn’t. The American Civil Liberties Union and the
Illinois State Supreme Court, using the First Amendment as legal precedent,
upheld the Nazi party’s right to speak. Indeed, subsequent U. S. Supreme Court
decisions have consistently upheld the rights to free speech regardless of
potential, even probable, harm.
Here, a man can not only speak the anti-Semitic sentiments
of a repressive, brutal tyranny by wearing the uniform of the Nazi party in
Illinois, he can also burn Old Glory, declare that the fire is communication,
and go free. He can take up arms, declare them his Constitutionally
protected right, stand his ground, and go free after having expressed his
thoughts about fellow men, personal space, and sharing property with at least
one bullet. He can also exercise his intelligence; walk into the voting booth,
proper identification in hand according to the whims of his location; and speak
through the ballot. Or he can walk door to door and share his political opinions, and he can underwrite the cost of propaganda in an effort to persuade the
electorate. This last exercise of free speech, the one involving money, worries me.
With the Citizens United decision, vast sums of money can be brought to
bear upon political outcomes. The trouble is that those behind the monetized
political speech are virtually anonymous, especially if they donate to a 501 C
4. Only the IRS knows the identities of those donors; the rest of us
intelligent folk cannot “discern the true from the false” because we don’t know
whose voice sends the message. We don’t know whether his thoughts are full of
hate or good intentions for the nation. All we know with any degree of certainty is that millions are going hither and yon for
campaign advertising in this 2012 election, and we know that money, filthy lucre, gold, silver, greenbacks--or just the promise of it--has a corrupting influence.
From a love of money sprouts evil. So says the Bible as well as tales written by Chaucer, Shakespeare, and John Lanchester in Capital. From a love of money sprout disinformation, misinformation, distortion, and lie as donors try to gain political advantages and power. Yet the authors of those messages are shadowy because Citizens United, as implemented, does not require that individual donor names become part of the message until after the election has taken place and in the case of 501 C 4s, those donor names will never be known. They can sling and spin words to their advantage, often distorting
and twisting events and facts until they no longer resemble the truth. Intelligent
people cannot “discern the true from the false” because there are so many
versions of a truth blowing in the wind, their authors unknown.
So, Justice Scalia, if speech is money and money is speech, as you assert,
and if it’s become nearly impossible to learn from whom the speech comes, then
I suggest that we simplify the process of electing representatives to local,
state and national offices. We should make a clear broth instead of lumpy,
opaque soups, and we can: by eliminating middle men, including SuperPacs, 501 C
4s, think tanks, 24/7 cable news, and policy wonks.
Let us return to simpler times like those we lived when candidates
ran for office in public schools and skipped class time on task while
distributing pencils, Hershey’s kisses, and erasers. In those elections, the quantity and quality
of Get Out the Vote tokens; i.e.,
money, determined outcomes. It’s human nature to
be favorably persuaded by those who favor us with treats. But current Citizens
United practices and policies run counter to such tangible, direct means of
persuasion so let’s eliminate visual and verbal messages spun from anonymous agencies
and agents. Just leave it to me, my hand extended to receive Get Out the Vote tokens.
Let all those aspirants to higher office continue to put their thoughts
into action. Let them express themselves by making their desires for my vote real.
Give me ice cream or cake--although, I warn you, according to legend, cake did
not work out well for Queen Marie. Give me a job, not the promise of one if I
support you, but a real one with paychecks in hand and a contract that cannot
be voided if and when Bain buys out my employer. And while you’re at it, raise
the minimum wage and make it a four-day work week. Pay off my mortgage so I can
send my kid to college. Better yet, pay my kid’s tuition, room and board
included. Make me believe that you love me, but I don’t need to be courted or schmoozed. Just
dazzle me, darling candidates, because diamonds really are a girl’s best
See Justice Scalia? My solution simplifies the mess we’re in
because it is a system that we know; indeed, it is a system already in place in
the form of government subsidies, tax breaks, tax incentives, new bridges,
improved roads, or commemorative statues, plaques, and buildings. It’s just
that the little guy rarely receives those incentives directly, but I assure
you, I can be trusted to turn my vote to personal advantage. I will, in fact,
vote with my pocketbook, not my heart, I swear.
I’ll prove your case that money is speech. I’ll go along.
I’ll get on board as long as money greases my own slippery palm and not someone
else’s. I promise to stop using phrases like conservative activist judges if you rule in my favor. I might even
send you a chunk of the change I receive if you’ll just promise to be on the
side of the little guy in need, the one trying to discern the false from the true.