HOW DOES "ALL [PEOPLE] ARE CREATED EQUAL" MEAN WHAT IT SEEMS TO SAY

I am an American citizen who absolutely, positively believes as a first principle that “all [people] are created equal.”  Similarly, I believe in their endowment of “unalienable Rights,” among others unnamed, “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”  I just as absolutely, positively believe that whatever makes us individuals also makes us unequal.

The apparent paradox is easy to resolve.  The principle of equality prominently stated in The Declaration of Independence is a statement of political—I say again: political—equality and nothing more.  It is certainly not a statement denying the facts about the numerous differences among individuals and groups of people.  None of the Founding Fathers thought that people were equal in other respects, and no one whom I know thinks otherwise.  They knew and we know that individuals differ in many ways.  They knew and we know that factors like intelligence, aptitudes abilities, character, and morals are commonly associated with groups defined by race, gender, ethos, religion, nationality, class, or wealth.  Thus, stereotypes: Jews greedy and duplicitous, Blacks unintelligent and lascivious, women weak and hysterical, etc.

However, when the Founding Fathers wrote The Constitution of the United States, they were not making a political declaration of rights but drafting a political definition of government power, federal and state.  For whatever purposes—probably to maintain the unity of northern and southern states in the new country—, they did not assume, much less assert, that being “created” equal politically implies continuing equal politically, despite the peoples’ endowment by “their Creator” with “unalienable Rights.”  They wrote as if they believed and thereby allowed others to believe that these factors as associated with groups justified restrictions on their rights.  As a result, federal and state governments initially denied non-whites (slaves, Indians), whites with little property, women, Jews, and Catholics rights, among others, to vote and own property.

America’s first two foundational documents create an ambiguity about equality—is it universal as an inherent, enduring birthright common to all people or particular because of individual or group differences?—and thereby allows Americans to be egalitarian with justification or bigoted by rationalization.  Egalitarian in respect for all others and in impartial comity in political and personal relationships; bigoted in a sense of superiority to and entitlement over those different by race, gender, ethos, religion, nationality, class, or wealth.  America’s culture wars reflect this inherent ambiguity in its first foundational documents.  Yet the distinction between egalitarians and bigots has never been a clear one.  Most people are a mix of different inclinations, regarding some groups favorably, other groups unfavorably, with exceptions for known individuals.  In general, race, then gender, then religion are primary factors in American reflections on equality.

The history of political equality in America has followed roughly parallel but opposed paths.  In the majority, egalitarians have struggled to eliminate political barriers to full citizenship—in chronological order, wealth, religion, race, and gender—which have slowly been removed.  In the minority, bigots have striven to reimpose, protect, or expand these barriers.  Today, the political descendants of the one-third of the people who remained loyal to the British throne and crown are loyal to political inequality based on these barriers.  No longer Tories supporting a monarch, they are Republicans pledging allegiance to an authoritarian.  Unlike small-d democrats who at least in theory believe in the inherent political equality of all people, authoritarians, like Orwell’s pigs, resolutely believe in the inherent superiority of some people over others, some being more equal than others.

In this important sense, today’s Tories/Republicans are not only not any more “real Americans” than other Americans, but are Americans only by accidents of geography and birth (the Fourteenth Amendment protects their citizenship).  Their efforts as conservatives trying to conserve inequalities identify them as less than “real Americans.”  For what is “real” about “Americans” is a distinctive commitment to unqualified equality, which means that “we the people” are part of an experiment whether a government of all individuals equal under law is possible.  It appears to be failing.

Today, in addition to the many well-known threats to democracy from the Right are the fewer, lesser-known threats from the Left.  Its threats arise from a confusion of equality and equity, and a too precious, too partisan sense of individual entitlement.  My example of the former is money.  Almost no one believes that all Americans should have the same income and pay the same taxes—equality conceptually pure but practically impossible.  Almost everyone believes that every American should have a fair shake and pay a fair share; inequalities would persist on a reduced scale, but inequities would gradually diminish and perhaps disappear.

My example of the latter is public education.  Many people are concerned about the persistent gaps in academic test scores and advanced course enrollments.  Some want to eliminate the gap in enrollments by eliminating advanced courses.  Doing so eliminates the gap, without doing any real good and by doing much harm; this demand is mere cosmetics in the name of equality.  The gap in abilities does not go away—no good done—and all of the talented students, whether whites or of color, suffer the deprivation of an enhanced education suitable to their needs—actual harm to them.  (Advocates of this equality attack classes for good students, but they ignore classes for poor students.)

Any quest for equality beyond the political, even for reasons thought to be good, would pervert what it means to respect people for who and what they are, and would suppress non-political differences.  To aspire to make people equal in any non-political sense of the word is to seek their uniformity.  Such uniformity is not only undesirable, but also, fortunately, impossible to achieve.  Any attempt is unpleasant except for those—that is, the aforementioned pigs—forcing it, because their position and function would exempt them from equality.

Moralist that I am, I must say it: For constitutional democracy to survive today and thrive tomorrow, its citizens must live by its inherent values.  They must embrace decency, seek truth, do right, demand justice, and pursue peace—extraordinary but inescapable demands.  The question is whether people can satisfy them in their daily living.  Civility toward and respect for others cannot be a sometime thing for some people.  My recent experience in Las Cruces—with its police, city attorney, city administration, City Council, and media—does not give a hopeful promise.

COUNCILOR FLORES REINFORCES THE CANCEL CULTURE IN LAS CRUCES

Readers of my blog, whether viewed on my website or in my distributed email, have the unqualified right not to read it or even open it, to skip it or trash it.  They have the unqualified right to send me their brickbats as well as their bouquets; most do neither.  But elected officials with publicly funded email accounts have no right to block any constituent, regardless of whether they intend to read or respond to their emails.

But Councilor Yvonne M. Flores, a lawyer on City Council, chose to make a point by blocking my emails to her government account (yflores@las-cruces.org).  She wanted me to know that she so much detests me or my opinions about antisemitism, police dishonesty, the City Attorney, and the incompetence and waste by Public Works—all matters which should be matters of concern to Councilors—that she rejects them and those which I have not yet written.  Better I should applaud her and her colleagues’ heroic action in banning plastic shopping bags from retail stores and thereby striking a blow against climate change, environmental degradation, and the fossil-fuel industry.

Councilor Flores is just one of the city’s officials and its residents who believe that I, because of my background, should not have relocated to Las Cruces and then criticized it.  As I imagine her notions, this Yankee loud-mouth—probably, New York (you know what I mean)—should either keep quiet here or relocate elsewhere if he finds so much to criticize about Las Cruces (and New Mexico).  These outsiders!

I could be accused of picking on a woman except that she has company on the Council.  Mayor Miyagishima, having made public and private promises that I could present my case to the police auditor, began to quake at the thought and quibble at the terms after the temporary spasm of public protest for police reform relaxed.  So when I sent OIR the materials which I might have presented to it, he pitched a fit.  He persuaded Council to disqualify my case from OIR review by setting a start date for reviewed cases long after mine, though I was still pursuing it by administrative appeals.

Councilor Johana Bencomo, who had spoken so earnestly about police reform until she, too, realized that the public no longer cared, had heard the City Manager admit the false charges and the need for a retraction and an apology, but had been scolded into submissiveness by the Mayor, was pleased to stress this deadline in a working session so that I would get the message of her betrayal of my case.

Long before, Councilor Gabriel Vazquez had refused to respond to an email about police reform when he, too, followed the issue while it had a crowd and abandoned the issue when it did not.  Now that he is running for Congress, the electorate should know that he is not likely to respond to or represent those with whom he disagrees; he will be Heinrich’s puppet and serve the Progressive Voters Alliance under the direction of Don Kurtz.

Councilor Sorg, who styles himself Mayor Pro Tem Emeritus, made several promises to me about the OIR review which he apparently broke before he made them.

My Councilor, Kasandra Gandara, while making City Hall meetings possible, likely disclosed confidential information about my case in conversations about it with her friend in the Law Office, whom she defended by blaming one of its senior lawyers.

Let’s see: naming five of six other councilors finding ways to silence me, shunt my case aside, or betray it sure ain’t picking on a sixth one.  Nevertheless, Councilor Flores sets the bar so low there is no going below it.  Whatever citizens of Las Cruces think of me or my views, they should ask themselves what they think of a councilor who behaves irresponsibly in her position and immaturely in her person.  They should also ask about the political integrity of Miyagishima, Bencomo, Vasquez, Sorg, and Gandara.

With an election under way, even reasonable people who think of themselves as Progressive might consider whether an all-Progressive City Council is too much of a good thing or, as I think, not good enough.  Bev Courtney’s views, when I can understand them, do not sit well with me, but it would sit well with me if she represented District 1.  For that reason and for her brains and bravery, we need a return of Ceil Levatino, with whom I have had the pleasure of disagreeing respectfully.

P.S. Would someone please forward this email to Councilor Flores.  I do not want to be accused for writing behind her back even though she has blocked my emails.

NOTE TO BLOG: I emailed her three times on 10 October and once before sending this blog as an email.  All four got this message.  A friend forwarded the 10 October blog to her; it was not returned.

11 Oct 6:00 & 10:10 pm update: My friend had his email blocked, but he failed to so inform me because he had the wrong email address.  I assumed that he had not contacted me because his email had not been blocked.  I retract the accusation that she blocked (only) me (unless, of course, she blocked out everyone to block out me, but I am not egotistical or paranoid enough to take that possibility seriously).  Still, all emails to all other Council members and three senior city officials were received.  What is with Councilor Flores's email account?

11 Oct 10:05 pm update: Ignoring my first paragraph, the Las Cruces City Attorney Jennifer Vega-Brown asked me to remove her from my distribution list so that she would no longer receive my emails, usually the texts of my blogs.  I note that the request is not her first insult to me and that she thinks that, as a public official using a taxpayer-funded email account, it is appropriate for her to request a taxpaying citizen not to communicate his views with her, even if some refer to her and even they are part of a mass distribution.  As a lawyer, she should know, but apparently does not know, that the Constitutional right to petition government implies the right to communicate with government officials.

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SCHOOL BOARD CANDIDATES: LWV ASKS BAD QUESTIONS, GETS BAD ANSWERS

I know that the people, men as well as women, in the League of Women Voters of Southern New Mexico mean well.  They always mean well.  They do not always do well.  Exhibit one and only: the “2021 Voters Guide” in the 8 October issue of The Bulletin.  The questions which they asked of this year’s School Board candidates make that point.

Their four questions show them ill-prepared to elicit critical information from the candidates.  The questions are:

1. What do you think are the strengths and weaknesses of the Las Cruces Public Schools?
2. Do you thinking funding should be expanded for multicultural education in public schools?  Explain.
3. How would you change the priorities of the school district as reflected in the district’s budget?
4. What changes, if any, would you propose to support online learning?

The questions are poor ones for a variety of reasons.

Question one enables paeans of praise to everyone—administrators, staff, teachers, students, parents, community—and personally favored or popular programs.  Did the LWV expect anything significantly different from the candidates?  What information would this question elicit to inform a decision to support one candidate rather than another?

Question two successfully distinguished two candidates—Abelardo Balcazar and Henry A. Young—who had the courage not to give the reflexive “yes” or “absolutely” answers from the celebrators of an inclusive multiculturalism regardless of literary merit or historical contribution in America or even just New Mexico.  Both provided education-oriented, not crowd-pleasing, answers.  The other four—Raymond M. Jaramillo, Pamela M. Cort, Robert C. Wofford, and Eloy Francisco Macha Camborda—should show that an increase in cultural inclusiveness and personal worth ensures a demonstrable increase in academic performance justifying the actual and the opportunity costs.

Question three should precede, not follow, question two.  Aside from answers which avoided the questions were answers which added money for some budget items without subtracting money from others.  In short, they promised everyone more and nothing less for the same budgeted money.  Advice to voters: hold on to your wallets or watch out for a midnight heist.

Question four is, of course, a loaded one.  It forces the candidates to support online learning.  Mr. Balcazar handled it reasonably; the rest booted it.  The question should ask about online instruction, which is what computers can provide, not online learning which students may or may not do.  At present, research does not show that on-line learning matches in-class learning or is good enough anyhow.  Mr. Balcazar’s circumspection beats everyone else’s acquiescence to computer/internet razzle-dazzle.

The more serious criticism of these four questions is that they pretend that the School Board need not identify and address the persistent problems which plague public education in Las Cruces as well, of course, as the rest of New Mexico; and which school board policies can address.

The problems are suggested by one fact otherwise glaring but for everyone’s efforts to cover it up with a thick veneer of undeserved praise for the perpetrators.  The fact: for decades, 4^th-grade and 8^th-grade proficiency scores in reading and mathematics have hovered around 50 percent.  The students assumed to benefit most from more emphasis on multiculturalism are those least proficient (and whose ability to pass relies heavily on subjectively assessed work products.  So my challenge above to Mr. Jaramillo, Ms. Cort, Mr. Wofford, and Mr. Camborda becomes more pertinent; how more multicultural instruction ensure academic improvement?

One critical implication: teachers K-4 have been only 50 percent effective, and teachers 5-8 are no better.  Are the candidates OK with mediocre teachers?  Are they content with the results of current hiring and retention policies and practices?  Can they not enact policies directing the superintendent to raise hiring standards and to use the means necessary to ensure that prospective teachers meet them before they are hired?

In the end, I am appalled that the League of Woman Voters is so ill-informed about public education or so timid about asking important questions about problems and solutions.  And I am more appalled by the candidates, especially those offering their incumbency or experience in education as a qualification, for not taking the initiative to address the issues which matter to the quality of a Las Cruces public school education.

SNAFU Deja Vu: Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Lessons of History

[NOTE: With Monday Indigenous Peoples' Day, this blog is almost a confession of U.S. sins against the Vietnamese and Afghani peoples.  And against ourselves; we did not "pledge ... our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor"; we betrayed them.]

I would put Craig Whitlock’s The Afghanistan Papers on my shelf with books on the Vietnam War but shall send it instead to my ex-son-in-law, a native Pakistani, now a naturalized American.  His reading will differ from mine.  He will respond to the cultural, social, political, religious, and economic dynamics of the area.  I respond, déjà vu, to the political and military similarities of the wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan.

Everyone has cited the major similarities between the two wars in terms of domestic politics and military performance: the United States lost both wars, caused the death and maiming of thousands of American soldiers and millions of Vietnamese and Afghani civilians and soldiers, and squandered not only resources better spent on anything else, but also opportunities to promote peace in Southeast and Southwest Asia.  Typically, it fought the wars for the wrong reasons and then with the wrong strategies and the wrong tactics.  Throughout, the White House and Executive Branch departments and agencies lied about everything about the wars: body counts, soldiers’ deaths by friendly fire or civilian deaths from misdirected bombs; the use of torture; corrupt in-country politicians and venal U.S. contractors; etc.  Perhaps worst of all are flag officers who directed troops to risk their lives in the service of their country and misled or lied to Congress to avoid risk to their careers by speaking the truth.  Every one of those flag officers involved with Afghanistan at home or abroad should be busted and dishonorably discharged.

The similarities suggest that the military service academies teach military history in order to repeat its mistakes.  Clearly, academy graduates learned nothing about fighting insurgencies in foreign countries (see endnote).  Lesson one: be true to American beliefs in national territorial integrity, self-determination, and democratic processes; ensure that our political and military actions comport with those beliefs.  Lesson two: have a legitimate rationale for involvement or intervention, stick to it, and avoid “mission creep.”  Lesson three: know the country, its government, and, crucially, its people and their culture as well as the enemy.  Lesson four: have and maintain resolve and support for military action, particularly by honest reporting, in both countries.

The U.S. failed in both wars because it did not learn these lessons.  Consider lesson one in Vietnam.  Although it was not party to the 1954 Geneva Conference, the U.S. announced support of its agreement: end of French occupation, partition of Vietnam along the 17^th parallel, and scheduled national elections in 1956 to unify the country.   But the U.S. soon abandoned its principle of self-determination after it replaced France as Vietnam’s occupier and supported Catholic Ngo Dinh Diem, who refused to hold the scheduled elections because he knew that communist Ho Chi Minh would easily defeat him.

The U.S. also did not learn lessons two, three, and four.  Fear of a communist regime as the first domino to fall in Southeast Asia was a fear without foundation.  Knowledge of Vietnam was skimpy and scattered; worse, leaders ignored OSS/CIA findings that Ho Chi Minh was more nationalist than communist; perceived parallels between the American war for independence and Vietnamese efforts to achieve independence from foreign occupiers, until 1946, the French and the Japanese; and expected these parallels to win American support against French colonial re-occupation.  And, from the escalation of hostilities after the Tonkin Gulf fabrication, lying became the modus operandi of the U.S. and South Vietnamese governments, to each other and to their peoples.  Gradually, support, never strong, weakened with Buddhist monk immolations and eroded with distrust in the White House and Pentagon leading to growing anti-war demonstrations.

Afghanistan differs in only one respect.  By eliminating the draft—the white middle class preferred to let others (minorities, the poor, and the hyper-patriotic) fight wars—American presidents did not need much popular support to make a plaything of a small professional military.  They needed only a supposedly legitimate reason (WMD in Iraq) to commit troops to military actions which then evolved into chaos—the only progress made in 20 years’ fighting in Afghanistan.  By the way, this 20-year effort gives the lie to those who think the U.S. would have won in Vietnam if it had kept on fighting.

Americans were justifiably outraged by the al-Qaeda attack on the Twin Towers and the loss of some 3000 civilian lives.  Retaliation was a political and military necessity.  However, the desire to destroy al-Qaeda training camps, kill its terrorists, and capture or kill bin Laden did not justify enlarging these focused efforts into an anti-Taliban war.  In little time and with little thought, the U.S. redefined its mission and redirected its efforts to do what no one imagined doing at the outset.  Without having an exit strategy to go with an entry strategy, without a view of the entire undertaking, the U.S. built failure into its unfocused mission, misguided at the beginning, mismanaged in the middle, and muddled at the end.  But, then, thinking ahead is not taught at the military academies.

Dislike how they came to power and used it, the U.S. should have accepted that the Taliban represented the collective determination of Afghans whether out of affection, indifference, fear, or impotence to defeat it and develop some other centralized government, if they wanted a centralized government.  But no one in any kind of mind at all—never mind a “right mind”—would think that Afghans were just longing for a white, Christian, capitalistic, democratic nation to invade, occupy, and overthrow their way of life.  “We always wanted to liberate women and send girls to school, and the good Americans have arrived to make us do what we have always wanted to do”—not.  Put like this, it is clear that the U.S. acts like “ugly Americans”: hubristic, arrogant, ignorant, imperious, domineering—generally lacking in human empathy and cultural sensitivity—and, thus, naïve, gullible, easily duped and swindled, and scorned and mocked.

In retrospect, Americans should be ashamed of their country’s involvement in these two needless wars and its implication in thousands and thousands of needless deaths, damaged minds and bodies, and destroyed property.  Those who served—flag officers excepted—deserve credit for doing what they may (or may not) have believed was in the service of their country.  But their country did not serve them or anyone else other than war-mongering politicians and war-making profiteers.

In prospect, Americans need to resist the traditionally easy recourse to hostilities as a solution to problems mostly impossible to solve by military means.  Military response times may be short, but military responses over larger battlefields and over longer times should be planned carefully, both for getting in and getting out, and not self-defeating in the effort.  The best revenge is served, not hot and impulsive, but cold and calculated.

A note on fighting insurgencies, if they must be fought to serve a national interest.  First, the U.S. should support only those governments which have considerable popular support and a collective will at least as great as America’s to fight insurgents.  Second, it must understand and commit to what it takes to defeat an insurgency—no temporary or trivial undertaking.  An insurgency depends on two things: mobility and camouflage.  Its small forces must be able to move to strike targets suddenly and withdraw quickly.  Its troops must be able to blend into the populations to be, say, farmers by day, fighters by night.  Counter-insurgency tactics which will not work are grandiose sweeps and thrusts, special forces raids, and overwhelming, but often indiscriminate, firepower from the air, with troops returning to the comfort of bases with PXs, bars, hot meals, hot baths, and clean sheets.  The only workable tactics are long-term troop occupation and control throughout the country, with troop units assigned to and supplied in specific areas of responsibility.  They manage all movement within the area and round the clock, get to know the people, and, if the people want and define it, provide economic or educational assistance.  But these tactics can work only if the U.S. strategy honors the four lessons reflecting American principles.