REFLECTIONS ON OIR’S FIFTH SEMI-ANNUAL AUDIT REPORT ON THE LAS CRUCES PD

A year ago, when OIR presented its oral report to City Council, its spokesperson emphasized that citizen-police interactions were excellent.  It turned out that OIR had not talked with any citizen who had interacted with the police.  OIR presented as fact what was exclusively the LCPD’s self-assessment of its citizen-police interactions.  By fronting for the LCPD, OIR diminished its credibility at the bargain-basement price of $75,000, for which Las Cruces got its whitewash of the LCPD.

 

This year, I skimmed, I did not scrutinize, OIR’s entire report, Fifth Semi-Annual Audit Report (March 2024), but I trust my sampling is reliable.  In it, OIR admits its past whitewashing: “Our scope of work…incorporates elements of transparency” (p. 5).  This addition to its scope of work means that OIR’s previous scope of work lacked “elements of transparency.”  But many observers knew as much without being told so now.

 

A lack of specificity amounts to whitewashing.  “The Internal Affairs investigator made effective use of the Force Cadre’s findings as a foundation for further inquiry and, ultimately, accountability for the involved officer” (p. 29).  What “accountability” means is vague, and this vagueness leaves the public ignorant of what it means in a use-of-force situation.  Was it a slap-on-the-wrist letter of reprimand or something more serious?  It is hard to think that OIR is serious about any of those “elements of transparency” when it does not illuminate LCPD’s performance with specific and important details.

 

Hints of pro-police bias recur.  For one example, in its discussion of 12 external complaints, OIR urges that “it is useful to set this in perspective: in this period, LCPD responded to 85,908 calls for service” (p. 15).  OIR’s perspective is clear; diminish the importance of the problem by emphasizing the small number of complaints without regard for their significance—a common ploy in institutional defensiveness.  OIR does not consider how many complaints may not have been made in a society with a culture more noted for acquiescence than assertion or action.  The very low number of only 12 complaints out of nearly 86,000 service could suggest a far greater number.

 

For another example, OIR asserts that “it is true that body-worn camera recordings have had a profound evidentiary effect on the discipline process, and can sometimes definitively establish that a given allegation of misconduct did not occur” (p. 30).  OIR presumably means that the misconduct, not the allegation, did not occur.  It does not say that body cams can establish that the alleged misconduct did, in fact, occur.  Any honest auditor would have stated that body cams can establish whether alleged misconduct did or did not occur.  But OIR is so biased that it cannot make such a professionally balanced statement.

 

Count me as a skeptic of OIR’s work.  I suspect that whitewashing police departments is its business model.  After all, telling unwelcome truths might cost it a renewable contract, even for only $75,000.  Obvious questions are, has ORI ever severely criticized a police department, and, if so, was it kept on the job as part of an effort to reform it?

 

And count me a skeptic of the City Council’s commitment to accountability and transparency when it persists in fobbing off such biased work as reflecting a serious concern about police performance.  Incremental tinkering with OIR’s scope of work is not going to earn it the trust of citizens who do not trust the LCPD or whose daily encounters with the police are unsatisfactory.  It simply allows Council members to feel safe a little while longer from having to deal with unprofessional policing and to feel good about themselves for presenting themselves as if they care about public safety.

ABORTION: CONCEPTION OR EXCEPTION(S)

My blogs on abortion go back to 2009.  In 15 years, I have written 14 blogs dealing primarily or exclusively with abortion.  I am not obsessed by the topic; I find it simply fascinating because abortion is the nexus of issues of culture, history, philosophy, politics, and religion.  For an intellectual like me, no subject gets better than that.

 

The central issue of abortion is the definition of the beginning of life.  But there is no “the” definition; any definition depends on its context, usually religious, but sometimes moral or philosophical, in a particular culture at a particular historical moment.  A case in point is Catholic doctrine.  In the High Middle Ages, Thomas Aquinas established the Church’s position from the 13^th to the 19^th centuries.  He defined life as commencing at “ensoulment,” that is, when God introduced the soul into the fetus, as indicated by “quickening,” or fetal movement.  Catholic scholars in the 16^th and 17^th centuries argued that life begins at conception, and the Church adopted this position in the 19^th century and maintains it today.  The Church’s definition of the beginning of life is a verbal stipulation made according to its contemporary theological interests.  Its shifting definitions of the beginning of life mocks its rigid dogmatic stance on the issue.

 

Other faiths have different definitions.  Depending on the denomination, Protestants have definitions ranging from conception to ensoulment to birth.  Jews, whether Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, or Reconstructionist, share the same definition: the moment of breach.  Muslims define the beginning of life as quickening.  I am told that Navajos define the beginning of personhood as the moment a child first laughs.  Of course, other religions have their own definitions, some like, some unlike, these.

 

These are the basic religious facts.  The basic political fact in America is that, under the First Amendment to the Constitution, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”  However, the courts have handled the issue of abortion badly in two ways.  One, they have consistently avoided viewing abortion as a practice regarded, treated, even justified, according to different religious definitions about the beginning of life.  Two, they have made rulings which, since they are not congressional, but judicial, violate the spirit, if not the letter, of the Constitution.  For stipulating any particular definition amounts to an “establishment of religion” and thereby places restrictions on the “free exercise” of religion.  The central flaw of Justice Blackmun’s opinion in Roe v. Wade and of Justice Alito’s opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization is that they approve what the First Amendment prohibits: a necessarily religious definition of the beginning of life.

 

The result is that the courts have effectively reinforced society’s divide between abortion as a religious issue about individual rights and abortion as a political issue about government power.  The certainty that the divide is entrenched and will remain so rests on the incommensurability of the two entrenched positions, one religious, the other political.  The strengths of these positions will fluctuate, and no permanent resolution will result so long as the parties to the controversy do not re-think their positions.

 

The clearest example of this division of rights versus power is the controversy following the decision of the Alabama Supreme Court which virtually outlawed in vitro fertilization (IVF).  This court ruled that life begins at conception and implied that any destruction done to the zygote (though commonly called embryo) thereafter amounted to homicide.  The furious reaction across the country compelled Republicans to declare their support for IVF and to initiate legislation to protect IVF as a legitimate medical procedure.  This court was clear about the religious underpinnings of its opinion; Republicans were clear about the political pressure prompting its proposed legislation.

 

However, the court-instigated controversy cannot be quieted or quelled by hurried legislative jiggling and juggling in an attempt to appease both parties.  For those who believe that life begins at conception and must be protected thereafter, the zygotes are life forms which must be protected in any condition and in all circumstances, whether in utero or in storage.  For others, especially those for whom IVF is the only means to have naturally born children, the risks that storage presents to those life forms, that the number of zygotes may be greater than the number of desired children, or that the zygotes may be subject to medical use, damage, or disposal, are risks worth taking.  The contradiction between the definition of the beginning of life and its sanctity, and the desirability of IVF regardless of the risks to zygotes will continue the instability of legislative and judicial responses to the problems which the issue of abortion presents.

 

Abortion demands a choice between antithetical positions: conception or exceptions.  Those believing that life begins at conception can make no principled exception for IVF and the possibility of “murdering” one or more zygotes.  Those believing that IVF is allowable cannot believe that life begins at conception and justify the possibility of “murdering” zygotes because of the desire for a born child.  For allowing such a desire to excuse “murdering” zygotes opens the door to allowing other justifications for ending potential life by aborting zygotes, embryos, or fetuses.  Indeed, any exception means that there is no rational basis for making exceptions in some cases and not in others; and not making them in all.  Those refusing to choose one or the other because they want both have only coercion to overpower the illogicality and instability of their indecision.

 

The only realistic resolution of this controversy is to abandon a narrow sectarian definition of the beginning of life and to admit that there are many religious definitions of the beginning of life, all of which claim to respect human life as religions variously define it.  For example, Judaism has increasingly restrictive laws detailing the conditions and circumstances under which an abortion is permissible as gestation progresses.  The alternative is a repressive theological autocracy which mutilates the Constitution.  In matters pertaining to abortion, the courts should render decisions and legislatures should enact laws which discourage people from meddling in other peoples' lives and from trying to use the government to do their meddling.  Such judicial decisions would eliminate a lot of unnecessary conflict and avoid a lot of human misery.

SELECTING AN NMSU PRESIDENT: A LETTER TO THE REGENTS AND A COMMENT

 24-03-07

NMSU Regents:

 

I have read with interest the resumes and DEI statements of the five finalists for the presidency of NMSU.  I am disappointed with the search committee and its choices.

 

Under its heading “Opportunities and Expectations,” the search committee stated that it would ask the candidates “to address the following significant priorities:

 

·       Preserve the land-grant, spacegrant mission of New Mexico State University and elevate distinctive attributes.

·       Strengthen commitments to provide a student-centered experience and grow enrollment.

·       Grow fundraising opportunities and engage with the broader community.

·       Foster a sense of belonging and inclusion.

·       Provide leadership that demonstrates understanding and commitment to the principles of shared governance and responsibility.

·       Champion academic excellence and advance research and creative activity.

 

Given the phrase “significant priorities,” I assumed that the search committee’s list of priorities itself would reflect NMSU’s or the search committee’s priorities.  So it came as a shock that, of the six priorities, academics—“Champion academic excellence and advance research and creative activity”—ranked last.  The search committee seems to discount NMSU’s status as an academic institution, with academics constituting its primary rationale.  Instead, it ranks more highly the other five priorities, all of which are ancillary, though important, considerations, in no evident order.

 

The same criticism applies to the “Professional Qualifications and Qualities.”  Seventeen items are listed in no evident order and in no grouping of related items.  This lack of ranking and grouping suggests the work of an overly large committee of 24 members.  It seems that every suggestion was accepted and added to the lists as it arose.

 

I believe that only one of the five candidates has anything resembling the kind of academic background and university experience in academic administration which would well serve NMSU.

 

The inadequacies of the “DEI Statements” of all candidates reveal their deficiencies.  Two statements name no minorities who might be addressed by DEI efforts.  A third made passing references to a “Hispanic-Serving Institution” and the “LGBTQIA communities.”  A fourth mentioned Hispanics and Blacks or African Americans.  A fifth mentioned African American, Asian-American, Hispanic/Latin X, and LGBTQIA groups.  None of them mentioned religious groups which are sometimes marginalized, among others: Muslims and Jews.  In short, none of the candidates seems to have the breadth of perspective required for diversity as a pre-condition of equity and inclusion (and for the fourth priority).  Their myopia is the more notable because of today’s political issues and campus demonstrations.

 

In sum, I believe that none of these candidates, if selected for the presidency, can elevate NMSU academically or improve the institutional quality of life.  I wish it were otherwise because mediocrity begets mediocrity.

 

Michael L. Hays

 

 

24-03-09

 

An additional comment not sent to the regents on the candidates’ DEI statements.

 

Without exception, all five of their statements detail work on committees and in programs.  This professional activity involves collaborative work with others, is mostly administrative, and only imperfectly identifies individual responsibilities and contributions.  Although the candidates might have undertaken such work because of a personal commitment as well as a professional obligation, their statements mention little personal involvement based on empathy or a concern for social justice.  With one exception, an embarrassing one—one candidate mentions making “close friends” of two Hispanic students at NMSU but lost track of them when they dropped out—, none stated a DEI commitment based on personal experiences with people of different races, religions, gender orientations, and backgrounds.  The exclusive focus on the larger minorities, blacks and Hispanics, and on women is blind to smaller minorities, unacknowledged and presumably overlooked—one reason for questioning the candidates’ understanding of and commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.  A DEI statement reporting the discharge of a professional obligation does not do much to signify such a commitment.

TRUMP: CHICKEN LITTLE OR LITTLE CHICKEN--OR BOTH?

We know the traditional children’s bedtime story about Chicken Little warning that the sky is falling, so I shall not repeat it.  The updated version, given at a 24 February session of the recent gathering of CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Committee, in National Harbor, Md., is Donald Trump’s.  As reported in a New York Times article, much more than a falling sky will befall America if Joe Biden is re-elected in November.

 

In Trump’s apocalyptic re-telling of the old tale, Biden’s re-election to a second 4-year term would bring multiple, overwhelming disasters to America.  Here it is:

 

If Mr. Biden is re-elected for a second four-year term, Mr. Trump warned in his speech, Medicare will “collapse.”  Social Security will “collapse.”  Health care in general will “collapse.”  So, too, will public education.  Millions of manufacturing jobs will be “choked off into extinction.”  The U.S. economy will be “starved of energy” and there will be “constant blackouts.”  The Islamist militant group Hamas will “terrorize our streets.”  There will be a third world war and America will lose it.  America itself will face “obliteration.”

 

Fortunately, Trump offers an antidote of comfort—his promise of a better tomorrow if he is re-elected after an interruption of 4 years.

 

Mr. Trump promised on Saturday that if he is elected America will be “richer and safer and stronger and prouder and more beautiful than ever before.”  Crime in major cities?  A thing of the past.  “Chicago could be solved in one day,” Mr. Trump said.  “New York could be solved in a half a day there.”

 

As experts in many fields know, many children’s stories are scary as all get out.  If another person’s hallucinations can scare you, Trump’s hallucinations must terrify you.

 

It is one of the easiest things in the world to dream up apocalypses to make ignorant, insecure people fearful and desperate for relief.  So it is with Trump scaring the bejesus out of his gullible followers.  Although Trump is not a preacher but a cult leader, he and his gulls resemble generations of hellfire-and-damnation or health-and-wealth preachers and their credulous Christian followers.  They have not learned from previous fleecings and, instead of changing their ways, seek the next Chosen One.  For Trump, his story has a happy ending, win or lose the election.  Making chumps of those whom he swindles for self-enrichment or legal expenses, he will laugh all the way to the bank.  Thus ends the story of Trump as Chicken Little.

 

The other story is of Trump as Little Chicken.  It is another of the easiest things in the world for weaklings to dream up heroic tales of their holding up the falling sky, of warding off apocalypse.  In a second term, Trump says not only that he will do it, but also that he will do it easily, in little time.  He asserts and likely believes that he alone can solve crime in Chicago in one day, in New York in half a day.  How does the Little Chicken do it?  Apparently, by saying so (i.e., issuing an Executive Order), just as God did in creating the world in six days and resting on the seventh.  All God had to do was say let there be something or other, and, lo and behold, it was so.  Only after God said it, did He pronounce it good—proof that he was winging it, not knowing that it was good before he created it.  Likewise, Trump’s phone call to Zelensky, which he later called “perfect,” not just “good.”  Trump presents himself as the god who his chumps think he is.

 

Here is where the Little Chicken part comes in; Trump chickens out.  All chickens have foot spurs for fighting; Trump’s bone spurs, which prevented him from fighting in Vietnam, also prevent him from fighting the apocalypse.  First, he fails to say how, if elected, he will save America from multiple collapsing systems or end crime in a day or less in at least two major metropolises.  To be fair, if all he-as-god has to do is say something to make it so, there is not much “how” to explain.  But it should be easy enough for him to just say that he will speak up, then do so when the time comes.

 

Second, he refuses, if not elected, to prevent for the good of America the collapses of Medicare, Social Security, health care generally, public education; the demise of millions of manufacturing jobs, insufficient energy, and blackouts;—and get this—the roving bands of Hamas terrorists in our streets;—and more—a Third World War, which will “obliterate” America when it loses.  To be fair, Trump has never done anything for the public good if there is nothing in it for him; he remains consistently transactional.  But, if he-as-god claims that saving America is so easy, it must be that he is chicken-hearted because he fears revealing his inability to live up to his imagined, pretended heroism, the weakling’s dream.

 

I use a children’s bedtime story as a framework (flimsy) for humorous satire (a flop) to poke fun at Trump, his implausible proposals, and his pompous pronouncements.  I might have written directly about a very sick but very dangerous man who imagines himself as possessing a divine right as president, thinks himself the law above the law, and is a threat to all living under his rule: Hispanics first, LGBTQ+ and Muslims next, other minorities eventually, Jews last.  This nightmare is a long way from my childhood bedtime stories but not from a childhood nightmare.  When I was 10, I knew enough about fascist Germany to imagine that I might live long enough in America to die in a concentration camp—a possibility, thanks to Trump, not unimaginable today.

 

 Indeed, my nightmare has enhanced vividness because of the fascist propensities of Las Cruces officials, especially councilors who purport to be Progressives.  They—Abeyta, BenComo, Corran, Flores, Gandara, Graham—accepted the creation or operation of the secret Public Safety Select Committee.  Three Councilors on the PSSC were Gabe Vasquez, incumbent Congressman from the 2^nd District and candidate for re-election; Abeyta, who took his place, lost her race for a second term, and now does make-work for Sheriff Kim Stewart; and Gandara, who lost her race for mayor.  Others on the PSSC were mayors, a city manager, city attorneys, a city clerk, police chiefs or deputies, fire chiefs or deputies, and others on call.  Such a clandestine committee focusing on police policy and practice is the prototype of an organization which can evolve into a clandestine cell threatening, not protecting, citizens and their rights, especially in a little city like Las Cruces, which cares little about good, honest government, with transparency and accountability.  Thus, to avoid both after its unexpected exposure, the Mayor suddenly and secretly disbanded the PSSC, and he and all Councilors refused my two emailed requests to explain why.  So, given my understanding of the latent antisemitism of many city officials, particularly all three police chiefs, I have the nightmare of being among the first to go to camp.

THE GOLDEN RULES, THE CULTURE WARS, AND AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

In thinking about political polarization in today’s America, I have asked myself a troubling question: Can a populace, heterogenous in race, gender, ethnicity, and religion, live harmoniously in a polity of shared goals and ideals?  The answer appears to be “no.”

 

The oldest divide in America is that between North and South, which, because of slavery, resulted in the Civil War.  Slavery was a material realization of a fundamental political belief opposed to the first principle in the Declaration of Independence, the equality of all men.  The North gradually eliminated slavery in accordance with that principle; the South continued its repudiation by entrenching slavery and seeking its expansion.  This belief in white supremacy has since metastasized to the trans-Mississippi west, especially the Northern Rockies and Pacific Northwest, and spread everywhere else.  The result: racism exists to a greater or lesser extent throughout the county.  The repudiation of equality extends to other identifiable groups based on sex and gender (women, LGBTQ), ethnicity (immigrants), and religion (Jews, Muslims).  Christian nationalism is explicitly antisemitic and anti-Islamic.  The next Civil War in America is less likely to be fought by armies than by paramilitary gangs (“active clubs”), between neighbors, and among family members.  It will involve in-your-face rudeness, insults, and worse—bullying, intimidation, assaults, shootings—between those who believe in political equality and those who do not.

 

The difference in belief about equality becomes the basis of differences in conduct toward other people, with resulting inter-personal dissension, acrimony, hatred, and violence on both sides, but more on the Right than on the Left.  The near-universal rule for treating others is the Golden Rule (not invented by either Judaism or Christianity) has different phrasings, one positive, one negative.  The positive phrasing—do unto others as you would have them do unto you—occurs in both the Holy Scriptures and the New Testament.  The negative phrasing—do not unto others as you would not have them do unto you—occurs only in the Holy Scriptures.  Both can be appropriate, but one can be perverted more than the other.

 

The difference between them is large and important.  The positive form is self-centered and assertive; it enjoins a person to define what is good for another in terms of what is good for the definer.  This positive form of the Golden Rule may invite a person to meddle in the lives of others.  The negative form is empathetic and passive; it urges inaction out of regard for the personal autonomy of others and leaves them alone.

 

These different phrasings of the Golden Rule are paralleled in today’s culture wars being waged by the Right and resisted by the Left.  The Right tacitly assumes the positive Golden Rule to justify government intervention and meddling in the lives of people with different beliefs and practices.  The Left tacitly assumes the negative Golden Rule to justify respecting people with those differences and wanting them able to do or be as they wish.  Here, some might think of Jefferson’s position, that that government is best which governs least.  Jefferson would repudiate the Right’s belief that that government governs best which makes choices in the private domain according to its ideology and imposes them on others, whether they agree or not.  He might not reject the Left’s belief that that government is best which governs in the public interest without encroaching on personal choices not adversely affecting others.  After all, Jefferson inspired the Bill of Rights, with its many protections of individual rights against government power.

 

The Right wants to deny abortions to all women because some people object to them on narrow religious or irrelevant scientific grounds.  The Left wants to allow them to those who seek one but does not want to impose them on women who do not want one.  Take other culture-war issues.  If a neighbor’s child requires a change of sex, neither the operation nor the result affects, much less threatens, me except for a concern for the child’s welfare.  I believe that the child’s parents are more likely than not to know what is best.  If the local LGBTQ community plans a parade, I can attend or not, but I shall hope that it does not rain on it.  And if my children learn about the history of race in America, I do not worry that they will grow up hating America; I did not.  Instead, I would worry if they did not grow up hating racism.  To end the culture wars, embrace the negative Golden Rule: mind your business, and leave others alone to mind theirs.

 

Ironically, the positive Golden Rule as famously espoused by Jesus (Matthew 7:12; Luke 6:31) makes a mockery of those who proclaim themselves “Christians,” not to mention “Christian nationalists,” in our culture wars.  Religion, traditionally thought to imply respect, decency, and love toward others, is becoming its antithesis in hatred, abuse, and domination of others.  These radical Christians, militarized or sectarian imperialists on steroids, seek to erode or destroy a democratic system of government which affirms a laissez-faire, a negative Golden Rule, approach to racial, gender, ethnic, and religious differences.  As I blogged, the Christian right is neither Christian nor right.

 

The question is what motivates the perverse tarnishing of the positive Golden Rule into an Iron Rule of Authoritarianism.  The answer is fear, a common, reflexive response to anything different, including the onset of change, by the weak, the ignorant, and the insecure.  The Right wants power to compensate for its condition by controlling, erasing, or eradicating differences, and impede or prevent change.  As culture and society change, the Right fears that these differences will, according to “replacement theory,” overcome them, not by coercive means, but by the attraction of what appears to be true, right, or good.  The contrast between reversions to political abuses like Jim Crow laws and gerrymandering, and efforts to enlarge the franchise and make all votes equal works to the disadvantage of the Right and to the advantage of the Left.  The Right loathes the Left because of its popular appeal to what is best for all.  What the villain Iago says of Othello’s honorable friend Cassio—“He hath a daily beauty which makes me ugly”—perfectly articulates the Right’s response to the increasing attraction of the Left.  So, to support democracy, support equality in all matters civic and political.