-OK, Nathan has officially signed up with Willie Stark, -the corrupt governor from All the King's Men. Whatever -it takes, whatever laws we break, whoever we have to -buy, whatever blind eyesw e turn to, for example, -uniuon corruption and political looting, we do -whatever is necessary to pass good legislation.
Not really what I said. I said that the patronage laws in question don't make me swoon with indignation when they're violated. There's a good argument that the elimination of patronage just meant that politicians, who could no longer recruit campaign workers through promises of jobs, then had to increasingly turn to corporate money to fund their campaigns. Which led to far more systematic corruption of our politics than the old machines did.
-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.
Why hypothetically? Do you oppose every violent revolution in history? Is the Constitution illegitimate because people were killed in the War for Independence? Was ending slavery worth the people who died to achieve in the Civil War?
Of course, ends and means are evaluated against each other. In practice, I'm a Gandhian in believing the right means usually lead to the right ends when pursued with proper diligence, but I am possibly a bit more tolerant of human weakness by various allies than you may be. People make compromises in the struggle for power. Sad but true.
Morality is all about evaluating means and ends. Every health policy decides to help some people live, while leaving others to die. Ethics? Our nation drops bombs on some children, while millions of others die of preventable diseases because the US uses trade law to prevent cheap medicines from being sold. So yes, if the tradeoff for getting some kids health care are a few patronage appointments, that's fine with me.
Show me dead bodies from Blajovich's actions and the means-ends analysis might get harder, but at the moment, it's not even a stretch on the brain cells.
Nathan Newman
--- 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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