Nathan, is there a rule book, understandably flexible and depending on circumstances, about which laws it is OK to break and what immoral things it is OK to do? Or does it just depend on how much good we can do? So, for example, if the price of Ryan's selling licenses to unqualified drivers was the lives of seven kids (unintentional, no one disputes that), was it justified by his communtation of all those death sentences? Would it be OK to allow a crooked mobbed-up union ledaer to loot a pension fund to get state health insurance passed? Would there be any political gain that would justify murder? I speak hypotheically of course.
--- Nathan Newman <nathanne at nathannewman.org> wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "andie nachgeborenen"
> <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com>
> -BUt it is insulting to Debs
> -and and the brave unionists who defied federal
> -strikebreaking injunctions to compare thir conduct
> to
> -Rod's alleged cronyism, which does not, in
> addition,
> -further the good fight but only, in classical
> Illinois
> -fashion, benefits his pals.
>
> I'd didn't talk about Debs challenging federal
> injunctions. I talked about
> him turning a blind eye to violence by lieutenants,
> which may have been
> useful in furthering the union cause, but was hardly
> ideal moral behavior.
>
> A little patronage to grease political wheels is not
> ideal but it's
> sometimes been required to make political processes
> move-- and if the result
> is health care for children, I'd rather have the
> patronage and the health
> care versus neither.
>
> -Nathan. I support good
> -Democratic legislation myself, but what's wrong
> withe
> -the Obama, Danny Davis, John Conyers approach of
> -promoting while staying on the right side of the
> law?
>
> Let's see-- hmm, oh yeah. They aren't passing any
> because they have zero
> political power. I'm not saying you can't get
> political power while being
> honest, but it's a pretty unconvincing contrast.
>
> I'm just absolutely underwhelmed by this fetish of
> horror at political
> patronage. Yes, we're all shocked, shocked to find
> political machines
> operating in Illinois. Bestill my heart. Horrors.
> I get palpitations just
> thinking of it.
>
> I'm not arguing for repealing the political ethics
> laws, since they keep the
> political games within bounds, but you just aren't
> going to see me
> discounting real gains for working families, gays,
> women needing day-after
> pills, and everone else who have benefitted from
> legislative and
> administrative changes in Illinois in recent years.
>
> -- Nathan Newman
>
>
>
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