The Four Oxen and the Lion

The Four Oxen and the Lion

A LION used to prowl about a field in which Four Oxen used to dwell. Many a time he tried to attack them, but whenever he came near they turned their tails to one another so that whichever way he approached them he was met by the horns of one of them. At last, however, they fell a-quarreling among themselves, and each went off to pasture alone in a separate corner of the field. Then the Lion attacked them one by one and soon made an end of all four.

UNITED WE STAND, DIVIDED WE FALL

Aesop’s Fables (6th century B.C.)

The now-famous “...United We Stand” quote was first attributed to the Greek storyteller Aesop more than 2500 years ago. It famously surfaced in Patrick Henry’s last speech in 1799 when he stated, “United we stand, divided we fall. Let us not split into factions which must destroy that union upon which our existence hangs." Patrick Henry joined other Anti-Federalists to oppose the ratification of our Constitution fearing it put too much power in the hands of the federal government at the expense of individuals and states. Pressure from Antifederalists influenced the counterbalancing Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments to the Constitution protecting individual rights and limiting the power of the federal government).

The following year, John Adams stated “There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution."

In his farewell address, our first president, George Washington, warned that political factions within the government might claim to be fulfilling popular demands or prevent the government from taking actions provided for by the constitution in order to give such powers to corrupt men.

These founding fathers of our country clearly anticipated the very situation we are now experiencing. The fear was not, in my opinion, prophetic, it likely was a recognition of the tribal nature of human beings conflicting with attempts to employ 

a single written constitution to unite dissimilar peoples gathered from many tribes.

Today we face two potential crises. First, the Middle East remains close to the brink of war. Secondly, the recurring phrase "constitutional crisis" suggests we are testing the limits of the ability of our Constitution to fulfill the hopes of our country's founders.

Neither of these pending crises is unprecedented in our nation's history. Both can be attributed to our tribal nature; at times like this, there is a thin veneer separating us from our barbaric ancestors. Here I will only address the second possible crisis and address the more consequential topic of war in a blog post to follow as the Iranian situation becomes more clear.

Our Tribal Nature 

Previously I wrote that the outcome of our most recent national elections in part resulted from the tribal nature of humans. Polls revealed most voters in 2016 didn’t choose elected officials based on the stated policies of their own party. Instead, they voted for a member of their tribe.

Tribes initially evolved to protect resources necessary for safety and survival. Over time, states and nations naturally formed as geographical boundaries fenced together people having similar cultures, languages, religions and other affinities. Tribes coalesce for these very practical reasons but the cohesion of a group is further strengthened by specious behavior. A recent study comingled participants from both Republican and Democratic parties together and allowed them to get to know each other's expertise, education, political affiliation, and other characteristics. They were then encouraged to rely on each other for help performing non-political tasks, e.g., categorizing geometrical shapes. The subjects relied on the judgment of members of their own political party over the other more relevant attributes such as occupation, education, and experience.

Unlike most nations, the core of America (predominantly the Middle Colonies) was formed by members of more divergent tribes than existed elsewhere in the world including English, Dutch, Irish, French, Italians, Germans, Greeks, Swedes, Africans, Native Americans, and others. 

The Constitution was an unprecedented attempt to use pen and paper to unite into a single nation such a disparate collection of peoples. It was a bold effort to codify a set of values and rules we continue to use today to attempt to keep the “American tribe” united.

The US Constitution

The Constitution was not a document that merely codified a preexisting homogeneous culture; it was a document that was to establish a set of values Americans should adopt, and a definition of patriotism, “constitutional patriotism”, to which we were expected to pledge allegiance.

The United States Constitution was drafted to create a nation that could indefinitely: protect individual rights (the Bill of Rights); 
avoid the concentration and perpetuation of power that England experienced under a single monarch (checks and balances between the co-equal executive, judicial, and legislative branches of government); and balance power between federal and state governance (separating the powers of the state and federal governments). 

These principles sought to avoid the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation which allowed the original 13 colonies to print their own money, draft their own constitutions, and otherwise render the federal government impotent. The colonies had begun to function as if they were separate nations.

Constitutional Crisis

Disagreements about political, social, and economic affairs have existed in families, tribes, and communities of all sizes throughout history. Mechanisms ranging from democratic to authoritarian, from peaceful to violent, have historically been used to resolve differences within and between opposing groups. Our country’s founders understood human nature and the history of civilization well enough to create mechanisms that were intended to survive unanticipated advancements in technology and the human environment. 

Yet we are, for the first time in my memory, legally and politically testing the viability of the Constitution and our democracy. Today, the two dominant political parties, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, are divided by disagreement over the same issues that were debated by the colonies.

Republicans leadership feels individuals are excessively regulated, executive power is overly restricted by the other two co-equal branches of government, and states are overextending their authority.

Democratic leadership believes the government should restrict individual behavior for the greater good, presidential power needs to be checked, and states have a right to protect and manage their own social and physical environment. 

But the emotional investment in one's party seems to be more intense and more divisive than during the past few decades due to social, cultural and technological changes not anticipated by our founders. Promoting the discord are a number of issues that didn't exist when the Constitution was written.

Social Media

Technological changes including radio, television, and the Internet has greatly impacted our political and social environments. But I put social media in a different category. The First Amendment guarantees our free speech with a few exceptions (threats, obscenity, inciting violence, perjury, etc.). It does not prohibit making untrue statements or promoting "conspiracy" theories which, unlike media in the past, can instantly spread through social media to millions of people instantaneously. 

Confirmation bias is evident in “echo chambers” that media promotes by disseminating both true and untrue opinions mixed with facts. Readily available tools like photoshopping, copying and editing, and DIY design tools allow the average computer user to create modified versions of otherwise legitimate newspapers, magazine covers, photos, videos, and other public displays. It has become nearly impossible to separate fact from fiction even with ready access to fact-checking services. In the end, it is easy to confirm things one wants to believe and avoid or disregard contrary information.

News Bias

    

In the early 1960s when I became eligible to vote and therefore politically aware, journalists developed reputations based on the ability to report factual accounts of important events in a timely manner. I generally accepted the news as true though I was aware of propaganda that might be promoted by our adversaries. That has changed dramatically. A few decades ago previously "legitimate" news outlets began to promote selective information that was designed to appeal to political attitudes of their respective audiences. As with social media, confirmation bias isolated audiences to exclude those who were not of the same persuasion. Today, it is likely that a news consumer rarely sees or hears news that contradicts one’s prior beliefs, nor is opinion clearly separated from fact, and emotionally charged views are more entertaining than plain facts (entertainment has become the money faucet for most media).

Mingling opinion with news has very effectively achieved its goal. According to a recent study, 

75% of the members of the two major parties believe that members of the opposing party assert facts (not just opinions) that are incorrect.

For example, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y made a joke about cow flatulence polluting the air. After the joke was filtered through Fox News and passed on to Donald Trump, he made a joke at an El Paso rally “...let’s hop a train to California,’ where you're not allowed to own cows anymore!” which was in turn reported by another news outlet that claimed “...Democrats want to ban the ownership of cows.

Liberal news is guilty of spreading misinformation as well. Left-leaning Time magazine erroneously reported in 2017 that Trump had removed the bust of Martin Luther King from the oval office. Other left-oriented news outlets repeated the story as evidence of racial bias. In fact, the story originated from an image of the bust that had been blocked by a reporter standing in front of a photo of the oval office.

Other examples: a recent poll revealed that 51% of Republicans believe Obama was born in Kenya. And MSNBC “Hardball” host once erroneously claimed Mitt Romney was a “flat-earther” who denies evolution.

The proliferation of fact-checking sites is a testament to how news has been weaponized in our current political environment. And the “info-weapons” have muddled reality sufficiently to allow absurd “facts” to surface even in election campaigns. One Democratic candidate claimed Trump had posthumously pardoned cult leader Charles Manson., a fake-fact that originated in a publication known for its satire.

Gerrymandering 

The word, gerrymandering, has been around since 1812 when the Governor of Massachusetts, Elbridge Gerry, signed a bill that created a very partisan voting district in Boston that resembled a salamander. The concept is much older than that and the practice is evident in some form in a couple dozen countries. The practice of gerrymandering in the United States traditionally has been a tool used by political parties to distort the intended effect of the Fifteen Amendment. It draws district lines that fence voters into fragments (called “cracking”) or concentrations (called “packing) that favor one party or the other, often based on differences in voting patterns of various ethnic groups. in state and federal elections. The impact of gerrymandering is to replace individual votes (majority voting) with district representatives. Specifying the populations to be represented is performed following the decennial census based on population changes over the preceding 10 years.

In 2004 the Supreme Court did not agree to take up a case argued by the Democratic Party claiming that the underlying gerrymandering deprived the citizens of the country the one-person, one-vote principle of Article 1, Section 2 of the Constitution following the 2000 census. Predictably the partisan use of gerrymandering accelerated following the 2010 census causing an emotionally-fueled increase in partisan divisions.

Digital technologies coupled with data shared by social media and sophisticated statistical polling enhanced the surgical precision with which gerrymandering could be weaponized. The level of detail with which small communities of voters can be analyzed and manipulated today is unprecedented. Today, Facebook's Vice President, Andrew Bosworth, acknowledged that Facebook tipped the election to help Trump win, not by manipulating posts but because the GOP made much more effective use of its advertising. 

The Electoral College

Following the 2016 presidential elections, I wrote “All 50 states elect governors based purely on the popular vote. We chose not to do so with our presidential elections. Had we done otherwise, a few federal elections and many state elections would have turned out differently. Why did the founders of our country construct the electoral college to displace the popular vote?” My answer is found here. In summary, I listed three motivations our forefathers eventually accepted: 1) our country would benefit in splitting Congress to balance population (House of Representatives) with geography (Senate); 2) with limited access to information across the nation, the population would not have the knowledge (or intelligence) to make informed decisions; and 3) the sharp division between the north and south over slavery forced a compromise giving slaves a vote less than equal to that of the “regular” folks. The latter two motivations are not relevant in today’s world but the electoral college has been too powerful a partisan tool for either party to abandon.

Partisan Identity

Partisan differences are not new; today’s partisan divide had equally contentious precedents. Historically the hostility between the Federalists (mostly urban dwellers) and Anti-federalists (mostly rural farmers) likely was just as great.

The Anti-federalists, promoted by Thomas Jefferson, vehemently opposed ratifying the Constitution, fearing corruption would allow the president to consolidate power that would lead to a tyrannical government like the one they had just escaped. They further argued that the legislative and judicial branches of government would be vulnerable to an extension of executive power into the courts and legislative process. They also were concerned that the vast rural areas in the west were so remote and sparsely populated that it would be difficult to consolidate political power to combat the more concentrated Federalist power in the heavily populated regions. Their biggest fear, however, was the likely erosion of individual liberties.

The Federalists, promoted by Alexander Hamilton and wealthy bankers in the urban areas, believed only a strong and financially sound federal government could compensate for the perceived weaknesses of democracy. In addition, Federalists favored a constitution open to interpretation to allow the federal government to accommodate changing conditions. When the Federalists lost executive power at the beginning of the 19th century, their judicial power was largely preserved for three decades under Chief Justice John Marshall underscoring the importance of the durability of the appointments to the Supreme Court which persists today.

Slavery and the civil war caused a partisan divide that perhaps was the most emotional and certainly the most violent political divide in our history yet our union survived threats of succession (in 1869 the Supreme Court found that states did not have the right to unilaterally succeed from the United States). The union was mended in part by adding the Reconstruction Amendments (13th, 14th, and 15th) to the United States Constitution.

Some argue that political unrest during the 1960s was at least as great as today ( e.g., civil rights protests, the Vietnam War, and the assassination of President Kennedy). However, others argue that, as a whole, we were less emotionally invested in our differences in the past than we are today; partisan identity seems to many to be more important today than partisan issues. Some social research supports this view (personally, I don’t recall such prevalent splits between friends and family over “inter-party” disputes, for example).

Reasons for Pesimissism

1. Money (particularly campaign financing) speaks louder today and political power is a money faucet turned higher by the Citizens United decision. 

2. Beginning with Ronald Reagan, popular entertainment celebrities and reality TV personalities have become credible political leaders who are adept at using populist rhetoric to manipulate public emotions and deflect substantive criticism.

3. From the Supreme Court down through lower-level state judges, courts are increasingly partisan largely due to both Democrats (2013) and Republicans (2017) implementing the "nuclear option", a gimmick that is now being employed manipulate procedural technicalities to reduce Senate confirmation of federal judges, (and more recently, Supreme court judges) from a 60% vote to a 51% vote. 

4. Social and Psychological research affirms a partisan “core” that increasingly unites people in terms of trust, credibility, emotional bonds, respect, and other non-political factors and, like magnets, like cores attract and opposite cores repel).

Collectively, we are families, communities, and a nation united under the guidance of a paper document written 230 years ago. Considering the magnitude of changes in communication and transportation technologies, world population, and boundaries influenced by wars and fluctuating political tides, it’s not surprising that the founding documents designed to unite us as a nation are increasingly corroding with the passage of time and the attendant evolution of civilization

Reasons for Optimism

We have no unambiguous name for our form of government though we frequently describe it with adjectives like democracy and republic, or phrases like "by the people" and "majority rule". Our federal government is not elected by a majority vote of all its qualified voters. Our governmental structure is flexible within the vaguely defined limits of our Constitution and its amendments but has been bent but not broken by stresses like a civil or foreign war, domestic unrest, or blending all races and cultures together on our land. In essence, we are resilient, if not always united, people. We may be experiencing the greatest division in political perspectives in our memory but in the context of our nation's history, it is likely that today's turmoil will take its place alongside other equally divisive periods as a historical footnote.

Our founding fathers initially were united by a single objective: we must not be governed by a monarchy. Our constitution will be amended and reinterpreted, state and federal laws will change, and we each will adapt to changes with which we disagree, but we will not become a monarchy and no dynasty will be perpetuated. We may be experiencing the greatest division in political perspectives in our memory but in the context of our nation's history, it is likely that today's turmoil will take its place alongside other equally divisive periods as a historical footnote.

To accomplish the goals of our Constitution, we must righteously adapt to the changes our forefathers did not anticipate. 1) Rather than restrict or constrain modern tools and technologies, we should employ them scrupulously to debate and promote our respective positions on the issues before us. 2) Regardless of our political affiliation, we must not separate into isolated corners of our pasture and risk losing our government of the people, by the people, and for people.