I shouldn’t have to say this to Unitarian
Universalists, but I think I have to anyway. All UUs do not think the same. The
values of individual UUs are not uniform. Just because a lot of UUs think similarly
in the theological realm does not mean that all UUs think that way. It does not
mean that a theological liberal is also a political or financial liberal.
We know that there are “Christian” UUs, Pagan
UUs, Wiccan UUs, atheist UUs—all sorts of shades. But do we really accept that?
Or do we tend to think that the way we as individuals think is the actual norm
and sort of expect that everyone else thinks as we do. Does the average
“Humanist” UU really sit comfortably
when a “Christian” UU professes a belief in a personal God and mentions the
ministry of Jesus?
Is a “Christian” UU affronted by the agnostic’s
declaration that God is irrelevant?
Our principles and purposes don’t address
theological considerations: we admonish ourselves to the “Acceptance of one
another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations.” This does
not mean acceptance of everyone else’s beliefs. It means acceptance of one
another as individuals. It implies the respect of the other’s beliefs.
But a UU must also develop a somewhat thick
hide. It is inevitable that some other UU will express something and express it
in a way to affront one’s own sense of what is right. We have to be careful in
our expression to not be affrontive, but it doesn’t always work so we must not
be too sensitive to such occurrence.
The same arguments also apply to other issues,
such as civil rights, race relations, social action in general. Again all UUs
do not march in lock step on these issues.
I have yet to meet a “racist” UU. But that does
not automatically mean that every UU I meet is <gung ho> to go out and
hug to his or her bosom every person of a different skin color. It does not
mean that every UU wants to have his or her conscience raised (especially in
some group session) to the needs or relationships vis-à-vis race relations.
Some people are truly neutral regarding race. It
does not matter to them what race someone else is- one way or the other. They
will be completely accepting of another individual based upon that individual’s
manner and personality. But they won’t go one step toward trying to gather in
someone else due to that person’s racial makeup. To them race doesn’t really
matter- really!
There are a lot of UUs who really don’t
understand this. They are disappointed if they can’t get fellow UUs steamed up
to be activists; to take a really active part in getting the races together.
The problem here is that the subject of race relations becomes an abstract:
“race relations” rather than the simple relationship of people on a one to one
basis.
To really work, any attempt to get people of
different races together has to be based upon common beliefs or common
objectives. You can’t just stir a bunch of people of mixed races together and
expect anything positive to happen. Just as you can’t stir a bunch of uniform
color people together and expect something positive to happen. There has to be
a commonality of ideas.
Now lets stray a little bit from UU. Let’s talk
“liberal”. There are some who don’t want to use the word because the “right”
has besmirched the word, implying all sorts of things to it.
But the major problem is that liberals have
tended to put themselves into a box. The “right” has just helped them along.
The “liberal” box: non-dogmatic religion; for equal rights for all, including
gays and lesbians; for equal rights for women; for “free choice”, unequivocal;
against racially tainted speech; Democrats; for gun control (actually would
like to license and limit ownership of all firearms); against using various
native American references in sports; for politically “correct” speech; for
“protecting” the environment; for protecting our food and water supply.
I could go on and on. Each one of those things
in the box has its “correct” interpretation, even if that “correct”
interpretation is actually, in fact, false.
The issue of
“free choice”, or abortion, if you will, is more complex than it seems.
On the one hand it seems ridiculous to refer to a few cells in an early
developing embryo as a human being. On the other hand it also seems perfectly
obvious that a fetus at 8 months is already a human being. The free choice
movement doesn’t really deal with that difference.
Native American references used in sports often have
the approval and even the encouragement of some of the Native Americans closest
to the usage. But in the box, all such references are bad.
On politically correct speech: a few paragraphs
back I used the word <besmirched>. I was going to use <denigrated>.
But I thought to myself about that poor guy who got fired for using the word
<niggardly> (meaning, of course “stingy” or “scanty”). Maybe using
<denigrated> could get me in trouble- it sounds similar. All those words,
including the one I have really avoided are derived from the Latin word for
“black.” But they were not derived from each other.
I could go on about politically correct speech,
and especially the cleaning up of our UU hymns in the current hymnal, but I
hope you get my point- I count myself as a “liberal” but I don’t buy into the
box.
President Bush recently got into trouble when he
interfered with setting standards for arsenic in drinking water. He touched a
nerve- everyone “knows” that arsenic is a poison!
Over my lifetime I have seen the science of
analytical chemistry advance so far that what was once undetectable has become
readily detectable in quantities so minute that one can literally find anything
in anything. One can find arsenic in just about any water sample, if one looks hard
enough. So Bush questioned the validity of the proposed limit. Was it valid? I
have no idea. But I question whether the validity of the limit is real or
imaginary on the part of those trying to set it. So I guess I’m expelled from
the “liberal” box.
I certainly am expelled from the liberal box
when it comes to nuclear power. I think one of the stupidest moves of the late
twentieth century was the buying the Shoreham nuclear plant by the state of New
York and the subsequent dismantling and scrapping of it- just as it was about
to go on line.
I see that PBS has been running an old “expose”
of the Three Mile Island episode. I can’t help but think it is being done to
scare people away from supporting any new nuclear power plants. This is in
spite of the fact that nuclear technology has progressed several orders of
magnitude since Three Mile Island.
It seems that the politically correct stance is
that we have to stop using power; swelter in the Summer, freeze in the Winter -
because we can’t emit any more CO2 from fossil fired power plants and we have
no other way to go to generate sufficient power.
One major problem we all have is that it is much
easier to be in a box and have our thinking all done automatically. The news
media are so distorted that it is impossible to know the truth of any news item
without a lot of extra and careful study of the situation. Even then, the real
facts are difficult to come by.
So when a news item hits the papers or TV, it is
easier to take it at face value and stick it into the appropriate box. If it is
“our” box we accept it. If it is “their” box, then of course it is “lies”.
The problem I’m currently having is deciding
which box is “my” box and which box isn’t “my” box. Where the once complacent
me could, of course, say which is which; the new me is saying “don’t put me in
a box”- they are all bad.
In researching for this talk I did a lot of
looking around and found that I could not subscribe to anything. I read a lot
of articles, at least one book and taped and listened to at least one TV show
purporting to be an expose.
I have been reading a book: “It Ain’t
Necessarily So”; How Media Make and Unmake the Scientific Picture of Reality. I
won’t review it here but it is very enlightening.
I’m now going to cover three of the many topics
I’ve pondered upon.
1) GE,
that is genetically engineered plants and animals.
2) Global
warming.
3) The
rights and responsibilities of criminal juries, including nullification and
lying by judges in instruction of jurors.
GENETIC ENGINEERING
Another area where I have great interest and can’t be fit into a box is Genetic Engineering. The liberal box has GE painted as “bad”. Greenpeace (a usual liberal box mate) wants to slow GE to a crawl.
I’m trying to inform myself. Presently I come
out on the side of GE. But I do so with caution.
I think the general opposition to genetically
modified foods, and especially genetically modified non-food crops is
overblown.
Yes I want to be cautious as to what is being
put into our food chain. I want adequate testing. But what is being touted by
the activists is “no to all genetically modified foodstuffs.” There is a lot of
need to generate crops that can withstand insect attack, drought, etc. and for
greater production per acre of land. We do need to feed the overwhelming
population of the earth. (As an aside, if we keep over populating the planet,
nothing can prevail against starvation)
When it comes to non-food crops. Timber, cotton,
etc. It makes real sense to come up with better crops.
A quote:
(Tree) plantations have been endorsed by a wide variety of environmental organizations as an important means to reduce pressure on native forests for exploitation. The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), which certifies sustainably managed forests and forest products, has endorsed some of the most intensive plantation operations in the world. These often involve major genetic novelties such as exotic tree species, hybrids, and clones, including hybrid poplars. End quote
The production of fast growing trees and tree plantations can significantly alleviate the need for cutting into our old growth forests and may actually trend toward saving our environment.
But some of the anti-GE activists have become eco-terrorists, or at least eco-vandals. Experimental farms have been wiped out in the middle of the night. Laboratories and research data have been bombed and burned. All in the name of protecting us from GE with very little scientific substantiation. The modern Luddite at work.
I don’t care to be in the same box as these people.
GLOBAL WARMING
The Press Gets It
Wrong
Our
report doesn't support the Kyoto treaty.
BY RICHARD S. LINDZEN
Monday, June 11, 2001 12:01 a.m. EDT
Last
week the National Academy of Sciences released a report on climate change, prepared
in response to a request from the White House, that was depicted in the press
as an implicit endorsement of the Kyoto Protocol. CNN's Michelle Mitchell was
typical of the coverage when she declared that the report represented "a
unanimous decision that global warming is real, is getting worse, and is due to
man. There is no wiggle room."
As
one of 11 scientists who prepared the report, I can state that this is simply
untrue. For starters, the NAS never asks that all participants agree to all
elements of a report, but rather that the report represents the span of views.
This the full report did, making clear that there is no consensus, unanimous or
otherwise, about long-term climate trends and what causes them.
As
usual, far too much public attention was paid to the hastily prepared summary
rather than to the body of the report. The summary began with a zinger--that
greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human
activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures
to rise, etc., before following with the necessary qualifications. For example,
the full text noted that 20 years was too short a period for estimating
long-term trends, but the summary forgot to mention this.
Our
primary conclusion was that despite some knowledge and agreement, the science
is by no means settled. We are quite confident (1) that global mean temperature
is about 0.5 degrees Celsius higher than it was a century ago; (2) that
atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide have risen over the past two centuries;
and (3) that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas whose increase is likely to
warm the earth (one of many, the most important being water vapor and clouds).
But--and
I cannot stress this enough--we are not in a position to confidently attribute
past climate change to carbon dioxide or to forecast what the climate will be
in the future. That is to say, contrary to media impressions, agreement with
the three basic statements tells us almost nothing relevant to policy
discussions.
Now if I am sitting in the liberal box, anything that George W. says or does is just lies and is wrong. He came out against the Kyoto protocol. (And then backpedaled a little.) So the Kyoto protocol must represent the gospel truth. So what I have just read must be all lies.
I’m sorry; I don’t think so. By my own logic and
common sense, what I read makes a lot of sense!
Another area where I find myself in danger of
landing in a box with strange box mates is that of Jury Nullification. I find
myself in great sympathy with the “Fully Informed Jury Association” but I find
that group associated with
The
Montana militia or a bunch of Senatorsor the Kato Institute or:
Such a conglomeration! Some of these I couldn’t
be more against! But some of these I fully support. And some I’m just neutral
about. But the topic is one I support whole-heartedly. I don’t want in the box.
I just want to hold my own opinion.
The association advocates that all criminal
juries be fully informed as to their duties and rights under the constitution
and law precedent.
A bill now
pending in the Missouri state legislature has whipped up a firestorm of
controversy. Judges and prosecutors there call it "a gut-punch to
democracy," "an invitation to anarchy," and a bill that
"flies in the face of everything this country stands for." One county
prosecutor has even called for the resignation of the 20 state representatives
who introduced the bill.
What could have caused such
calamity? This supposedly radical legislation would merely require judges to
tell criminal juries the undisputed fact that they have "the power to
judge the law as well as the evidence, and to vote on the verdict according to
conscience." It is hard to remember the last time there was so much
turmoil over a proposal to declassify a government secret during peacetime.
Meanwhile, out in Nevada, a
50-year-old florist and grandmother almost landed in prison for her efforts to
help spread the word to jurors. When her son went on trial for drug charges in
federal court, Yvonne Regas and a friend papered the windshields of nearby
parked cars, hoping to let the jurors learn the completely unexpected fact that
her son faced 450 years in prison for a single drug transaction nine years
earlier. Federal authorities charged her with jury tampering and obstruction of
justice, but eventually dropped the charges. Presumably, they gave up hope of
figuring out how they could get jurors to convict her without showing them the
contents of the pamphlets she had been distributing--and then her jury would
know the truth about nullification.
Despite all the modern
government resentment toward "jury nullification," its roots run deep
in both our history and law. At least two provisions of the Constitution, and
arguably three, protect the jury's power to nullify. They also explain why that
power is limited to criminal cases, and has no analogy in the civil context.
First, it is reflected in
the Sixth Amendment, which grants the accused an inviolable right to a jury
determination of his guilt or innocence in all criminal prosecutions for
serious offenses. Because of this right, a trial judge absolutely cannot direct
a verdict in favor of the State or set aside a jury's verdict of not guilty,
"no matter how overwhelming the evidence." Sullivan v. Louisiana, 508 U.S. 275, 277 (1993). Any violation
of this rule is automatically reversible error without regard to the evidence
of guilt. Id. Indeed, the point is so well settled that it was announced
without dissent in Sullivan by a Court that has been unanimous on only a
few constitutional questions in the past ten years.
This rule is applied with a
rigor that is without parallel in any area of civil practice. For example, it
is reversible error to direct a verdict of guilty over the defendant's
objection, even if he takes the witness stand and admits under oath that he
committed every element of the charged offense! Bryant v. Georgia, 163 Ga. App. 872, 296 S.E.2d 168 (Ga. Ct. App.
1982). (Although one might fairly describe that particular
defense strategy as a questionable use of direct examination.)
An addition since I wrote
this: a juror down in Tampa in commenting on the case of the woman who wore the
“Police” t-shirt said they had no choice but to return a guilty verdict- since
she had worn the shirt. Sure the jury had a choice. It was their right- even
their duty to acquit if they thought that justice would be done!
Well anyway. My point here
is that one cannot even trust the average judge to be telling the truth. I
don’t know if any of you have served on a criminal jury, but we have all heard
of the standard instruction of the judge that it is the jury’s job to judge the
facts of the case and the jury must not take matters of the law <right or
wrong> into consideration. That is the judge’s (and only the judge’s)
prerogative.
Well it’s a lie! And a
damned lie at that.
I don’t really have answers for the box dilemma. I bring the questions to your attention. It is obvious we all must be vigilant and accept little on face value without further checking. But life is busy and it just takes too much to check out every single thing that we read or hear. We would like to have some boxes to put things in which are researched out by some trusted surrogate. But whom do we trust and are those minds clouded by their own special “truths”?
One box might be termed our own “common sense”.
We all use that one a lot. It works well much of the time, but we have to keep
a close eye on even that.
No I don’t have answers other than one must keep
eternal vigilance.