Page Two: A Higher Court

I

Many harbor an overriding belief in simplification, an ideological minimalism that makes decision-making easy. In this view, there is a right and a wrong; there is the truth, and there are lies; there is good and evil. Most who feel this way are absolutely confident that not only are these distinctions obvious, but, as individuals, they in particular can make said distinctions easily and consistently.

Interestingly, those who em-brace this take are more focused on pointing out the darker side of issues others may be missing. Too often, at the same time people are damning others, they are anointing themselves.

In life there are many issues on which there are a number of honest and principled but still very different points of view. Moral, intelligent people can interpret facts differently. There is rarely one gleaming truth when it comes to opinion or perception. Still, accepting this complexity makes a lot of situations very difficult to assess while also complicating many judgments.

Those who embrace simplification often dismiss those who believe in ambiguity. They see that position as a strategy by secular humanists and their ilk to destroy civilization and attack God; thus, arguing for the multidimensionality of life is just a blatant, cowardly excuse to avoid dealing with moral absolutes. Some also believe that those who argue for complexity are not only evil themselves, but in addition they know that they are and consciously serve that cause.

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II

I'm always a bit taken aback at how casually some people dismiss others, sometimes saddling them with the most horrendous labels. It seems that it is almost always taken for granted that any public person – especially but not only politicians – accused of anything is guilty. Usually they also are ascribed the most perverted, corrupt, and base motives.

There is no assumption of innocence; in fact, innocence seems out of the question. If no formal charges are ever filed or the accused is acquitted, the quick response is about how the fix is in or how power was asserted to corrupt the case. Innocence is a concept not only barred from the conversation but absent from the complete vocabulary.

The Internet has solidified the certainty of accusations and sped up the rush to judgment. The amount of misinformation, questionable facts, rumors, and outright lies referenced in too many discussions is appalling.

Here, vitriol is the most common standard. Contempt indicates superior intelligence on the part of the contemptuous; smugness bestows righteousness. Arguments based only on fabrications, hallucinations, or completely unwarranted assumptions are offered as certain truths.

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III

There are those who love the smear, those who find unending joy in discovering the human flaws of public figures. No one is granted the benefit of the doubt; the doubt itself is all that matters.

Often, the process of condemning others for their immorality, "evil," greed, and other vicious traits is only one-half of the equation. The other half is that by condemning others, one's purity of purpose and personal nobility is enhanced and emphasized – moreover, usually the condemnors just as easily forgive themselves for their own trespasses.

When anti-abortion groups picket clinics, create websites that encourage murder, and treat such murders as heroic, they do so in the name of God. Instead of the far more difficult and less satisfying activities of trying to improve a community's health, increasing prenatal care, caring for orphans, pushing public education, and spreading information – all of which take some time to show results – they want to cash in on their nobility of self immediately.

Encouraging the killing of or actually killing a doctor is neither noble nor heroic; it is instead quite clearly blasphemy. One anoints one's group or oneself as above both secular and spiritual laws, restrained by neither the Constitution nor the Bible. Such a person not only acts as judge and jury but as an immediate agent of God. Only by that audacity can someone assume to act on God's behalf, granting his or her own reprieve from following the Lord's commandment about not murdering others.

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IV

Many with no evidence claim to know exactly what other people – most often those with differing views – believe. In this scenario, it is a safe bet that such beliefs will almost never be considered noble or well-intentioned. Instead, they usually involve a wallowing celebration of corruption.

There are many who themselves don't claim to have publicly achieved very much but feel comfortable discounting and debunking the achievements of others.

(Clarification is needed here. Public achievement and/or media recognition are by no means the only, main, or most reasonable standards against which life should be judged. Those leading simpler lives – in which they are satisfied, devoted to their faiths, committed to their families, and of value to their communities – often achieve the quality of life they desire. There are many different legitimate standards for judging social roles and contributions.)

There are those who have never run for public office but know they would do a better job than those elected. Those who have devoted little of their lives to public service who have no trouble damning those who have done so. There are those who rarely engage in creative endeavors but are almost always contemptuous of creative people and their works.

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V

Driving all this seems to be the ridiculous assumption that for everything, there is almost always a very simple explanation. For an effect, there is a cause. For any action, there is not only an accessible explanation but also a predictable, reasonable reaction. Certainly, this view is widespread across the board. In certain communities, it goes beyond that to the epidemic – our beloved conspiracy-hobbyist brothers and sisters base their entire belief system on this: that cause and effect are always obvious, and one just needs the courage to understand them.

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VI

This oversimplification is accompanied by the take that people are barely two-dimensional, lacking any complexity.

Witness the discussion of the invasion of Iraq. How many single theories have been proposed for what was really the motivating cause, as though everyone involved in making that horrendous decision shared a single ambition? Is it logical that all the players in the Bush administration, despite varying ideologies and beliefs, evidenced a single, shared goal?

There is a long list of theories from which to choose: "It was because of oil." "It was done because Israel secretly runs this country." "Bush was trying to avenge and make whole his father's failings." "Iraq did have weapons of mass desctruction." "Saddam Hussein was such an evil force, he had to go." "It was our mission to bring democracy." "There were clear ties between Hussein's government and al Qaeda (despite no evidence)." "It was driven by the elite so they could accumulate even more wealth." "It was done knowing it would fail to further destabilize the whole region to facilitate the goals of the New World Order." "The New World Order was behind it." And so on.

Humans are complex. They are also remarkably self-serving, erratic, contradictory, and promiscuous in their beliefs, though it would be silly to expect anything else. Simplistic readings almost inherently are invalid.

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VII

There have been a number of attacks on the legitimacy of the current Congress. There are those who argue that, given that it has not listened to the 60% of American people who wanted an immediate withdrawal from Iraq and the 70% who opposed its economic bailouts, Congress has failed. The logic of this claim is that the United States is a democracy, so the government must follow the will of the majority.

Those percentages come from polls. The way a poll question is phrased, deliberately or not, often affects the answer. If rephrased, the answer might be quite different. Sorry to beat it to death, but one of the core shared assumptions of the drafters of the Constitution was that the functioning government should be somewhat insulated from public opinion. This is so that it can concentrate on doing what is best for the country rather than be influenced by often fickle and rarely concrete public sentiment.

When we invaded Iraq, polls showed that as much as 80% of the public supported the invasion. Did that make it right? Unfunded legislative mandates are one of the reasons so many local and state governments are having fiscal problems. There is something despicable about the elected government in Washington doing this – but the critical problem with citizens' initiatives is that those who get them on the ballot and those who vote for them have no overall fiduciary responsibility. Look at California, where they have voted to restrict taxes, as well as passing a number of unaffordable initiatives. Those having no responsibility for balancing the books should not be dictating legislation.

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VIII

Passion does not legitimate conviction, condemning others does not enable, and deriding others does not bestow authenticity.

Many, regardless of specific ideology, believe that the way a position is articulated is the way it is validated – that the more certainty with which something is stated, the more certainly it is true.

Believing repetition validates almost anything, former Vice President Dick Cheney and presidential adviser Karl Rove are both going around offering revisionist history as rock-solid fact. They both are claiming they didn't make statements they made, that they didn't take positions that they took, and that – though some of their strategies have been proven dramatically wrong – they were entirely right.

Cheney and Rove know they are not going to get very far in changing the opinions of the opposition. They don't care. This is all about giving true believers material to reiterate as fact without thought while also trying to sway the ever-crucial middle. Ironically, they callously assume that those who most devoutly follow them are either willing dupes or gleeful co-conspirators. They have learned that if given a hook in stating a position, no matter how illogical, their followers will chant it in unison.

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Coda

Judging morality, deciding on the rightness of actions, and defining a moral compass should all start with the individual coming to terms with his or her own thoughts and actions. It should not begin with looking outward to condemn others.