Prosecuting a Relic

It has been discovered that there lurks in Minnesota a former member of a Ukrainian unit of the Waffen SS.  "Discovered" may not be the appropriate word, as this 94 year old man demonstrated a noteworthy lack of intelligence by deciding at one point in his long life to write a memoir in which he described his membership in that infamous organization, thus alerting the world to his existence and his past.  Perhaps it wasn't mere stupidity to do so, however.  Perhaps he is inclined to confess misdeeds, is remarkably honest, or is actually proud of this fact.

"Prosecuting" is not the appropriate word, either...yet.  A formal investigation has been opened by German authorities.  News accounts indicate that thus far there is no evidence of his participation in atrocities, though it seems there is some evidence that he was "in the area" where certain of them took place.  But his example inclines me to speculate regarding why he is being formally investigated and the purpose of any prosecution should it take place.  Of course, there is also the recent example of an actual prosecution regarding a man who died at the age of 91 while appealing his conviction for being a guard at one of the camps.

Just what would a prosecution accomplish?  It is unclear how "punishment" would apply in the case of a 94 year old.  It may be there is not much he could be deprived of at this point.  I've seen nothing regarding his physical or mental condition.  If he is ill or infirm in either respect then transporting him to Germany, putting him through a trial and imprisoning him may further impair his body and his mind, but if his capacity to appreciate punishment, as it were, has been diminished due to age, this may not be significant.  If he is in whatever it is may be "good" condition for 94 years, his condition would still presumably be made worse.  But how much worse?  And it seems that the idea of punishing a 94 year old is discomforting in some sense.  It isn't comparable to punishing a child, I suppose, as the punishment would be more severe.  However there is something which strikes us (strikes me, in any case) as wrong or at least inappropriate about punishing someone old and weak. 

Can it be maintained that prosecution and any resulting penalty would be appropriate as a deterrence in this case?  Well, it's very unlikely anyone would be deterred from joining an SS unit as a result, as there are none to be joined.   However, there may well be similar organizations at large in the world today.  It's unclear to me that they would be deterred, though, by the punishment of someone whose crimes, if any, were committed in the 1940s.  They may not care what their fate would be when they're in their 90s; they may think it likely they won't live that long.  Those Nazis who may still live likely will not change their conduct now in any fashion, except to struggle to be less conspicuous than they may already be.  Is there deterrence value in the knowledge that the long arm of the law will extend and ensnare even 70 years into the future, for certain crimes at least?  I don't know.  Do we want to premise prosecution and punishment now, after so long, on the mere speculation there will be a deterrence?

Perhaps it can be maintained that the crimes of the Nazi regime and its accessories were so vile and of such magnitude that prosecution and punishment is, in a sense, inherently necessary, i.e. regardless of consequences and regardless of the age or the condition of the defendant.  That would be to paint with a rather broad brush, though.  Individuals may have been Nazis who did nothing culpable.  It isn't apparent one should be punished merely because he was a Nazi long ago.  Punishment should be based on individual acts, crimes. 

What if it can be established that he did participate in atrocities?  Well, let's say someone, 94 years old, can be shown to have murdered someone in the 1940s, not as a member of an SS unit or an auxiliary of the SS, but in the course of a robbery.  What resources would be devoted to investigating, prosecuting and imprisoning him now?  Should he be prosecuted?

At what point does punishment become torture, justice mere revenge?  At the point where they have no purpose but to cause harm, particularly to the elderly?  Is that their purpose in the case of this man?

These considerations should come into play in determining action to be taken.  If they do not, then it may be that pursuing this old Nazi may actually make him a sympathetic figure.

What is Privacy?

Periodically here in God's Favorite Country we confuse ourselves over questions related to privacy.  We're prompted to do this when we "discover" that something (generally embarrassing) we consider our own business is made public or is a matter in which the government is interested or would have access to if it should become interested.  As to the latter, this is especially a concern in cases where the government has made a point of collecting information we deem "private" regardless of whether it has made use of that information, as it evidently has in the case of the National Security Agency and its vast consumption of information regarding our telephone calls and etc., a/k/a PRISM.

Of course our vigilant political representatives take advantage of these concerns when they arise, in pursuit of what they consider to be in our best interest--which is to say, their reelection.  This in itself can be somewhat embarrassing, as is the case with the blurting of the unfortunately named Rand Paul.  I think his heart may be in the right place on this issue, but he lacks any sense of...well, he just lacks sense.

I think we must acknowledge, though, that "privacy" is in the process of being redefined in these all too interesting times.  Most of what we do is being monitored, or at least logged, by someone.  Telephone service providers, Google, whoever operates the various cameras which seem to be omnipresent and record us walking or driving or waiting or shopping, and no doubt many others have a great deal of information regarding all of us.  Just what they do with it is uncertain, but I'm inclined to believe that much of what they do with it involves the acquisition of money.

Most of us know this is the case, at least in the "back of our minds."  But we don't seem to mind, at least until such time as we're confronted with the fact that others know what we did or said or wrote and are faced with the undeniable fact that we knew or should have known that we were providing them with the means by which they know.  Nothing is more irritating than the recognition of our own stupidity, except of course the consequences of our own stupidity.  However, until we're faced with that recognition or those consequences, we're quite content to expose ourselves, as it were, to the world at large using the technology available, because it is convenient or in some manner gratifying to do so.

There is a right of privacy which is recognized by the law.  Courts in this Great Republic have said so, and some of them have even found it lurking by implication in the Constitution itself.  This makes a certain sense, and some of the rights expressly given constitutional protection seem to relate to concerns which impact privacy, e.g. our right to hold religious beliefs without government intrusion, our right to withhold our private knowledge of what may incriminate us.  Given our peculiar fascination with all involving sex, we also see privacy come into play as something worthy of legal protection in the case of contraception, abortion, and obscenity and sodomy laws.  Many states have laws which provide a civil remedy to those whose privacy is infringed.

As a result there is nothing frivolous in maintaining that PRISM is an unwarranted intrusion into our privacy.  But one might wonder what difference it makes, since we voluntarily make this information available to private companies and the public generally so blithely. 

The answer can only be that the government is different from private companies and the public, and this is undoubtedly true.  Private companies may use the information we so willingly supply them to make money by taking ours, and the public may use the information to humiliate us or mock us, but the government can do even more than that if it wants to. 

Can't the government simply obtain such information from those who have it?  It can and does, as we have seen.  However, it's ability to do so should be subject to some check.  Requiring a warrant, some kind of impartial judicial or quasi-judicial review, is an imperfect check but would seem the best that is available.  Much as we want to prevent terrorism or crime, it would seem to make far more sense to do so in a manner that doesn't require the wholesale collection of data which may or may not be useful in preventative efforts.

At the least, the burden should be placed on the government to establish that wholesale collection of information is needed to effectively prevent whatever it is that is feared and would be adverse to us, and such claims should be subject to vigorous tests of verification.  Even if that is the case, though, there should be control and supervision beyond that available in the Executive Branch.

We have less and less of an expectation of privacy, and it is in the nature of private companies and the government to take advantage of us due to our electronic exhibitionism.  If we're not careful, there will be no right of privacy.

(Hate) Crime and Punishment

There is something I find disturbing about punishing a person for what motivates him or her to commit a crime (beyond motivation in the sense of intent to commit a crime).  It is easy enough for me to accept that a person's motives may be objectionable in and of themselves; in other words, that they are objectionable regardless of whether they precipitate commission of a crime.  But it is difficult for me to accept that motives, in and of themselves, should subject people to criminal penalties.

I suppose the Orwellian concept of Thoughtcrime figures in my concern.  But hate crime cannot be said to consist of "unspoken" thoughts or feelings as presumably the criminal act is an expression of the objectionable motive.  In other words, a hate crime does not exist unless it is reflected in the "normal" crime with which it is associated. 

Hate crime is bias-motivated crime.  As such it must necessarily involve crimes against certain classes of persons deemed to be the subject of bias.  Just what classes are the subject of bias can probably be determined statistically.  Punishment is not, apparently, considered appropriate merely for hate.  One person may hate another and cause harm because of such hate in various circumstances which don't reflect a bias as defined in the law.

So it would seem that the idea behind such law is that hate is not itself objectionable enough to warrant punishment.  Only hate of a particular kind, therefore, constitutes a hate crime.  And that would seem to be hate directed against certain definable categories of people. 

If that is the case it would seem appropriate to ask why that kind of hate as opposed to other kinds should be criminal.  A victim of a hate crime would seem to be injured as a result of assault, for example, no more and no less than the victim would have been injured had "bias-motivation" not been present.  It would be most difficult to establish that when improper bias is involved an assailant is more violent than when he is not.  If there is no greater injury, why should there be an "additional" crime subjecting the assailant to additional penalty?

I think this brings us closer to the concerns I have.  What is "criminalized" is a particular motivation which legislators (in the case of legislative forms of government) have determined to be peculiarly objectionable.  What is considered a crime is in that case a political decision.  It may be said in response that this is the case with all crimes, since criminal laws are adopted by legislators or government generally and so are necessarily political in that sense.  And that is certainly true.

However, there is a significant distinction between laws criminalizing conduct which causes some kind of physical injury and criminalizing "conduct" which consists of nothing more than objectionable beliefs.  Where belief or bias is made subject to criminal penalty, the possibility of misuse of political power and the law is much greater, because this makes the decision regarding what is criminal dependent to a much greater extent on the beliefs and biases of those making the laws, regardless of whether harm is caused to others.

Perhaps it's possible to establish that bias-motivated crimes are prevalent in some fashion, and the argument made that this fact warrants the adoption of laws punishing hate crimes.   But if we were able to determine that those holding certain beliefs are more likely to commit crimes than others, should they be subject to greater penalties than those who commit the same crimes but don't hold such beliefs?  Shouldn't we impose penalties on a case by case basis?

If it is maintained that hate crimes cause psychological harm in addition to physical harm and should be subject to greater penalty as a result, I suspect that would be something difficult to prove.  It may also raise questions regarding whether the imposition of psychological harm should be criminal, and under what circumstances.

To the extent that the law should be a device to address objectionable bias (and this presents difficult issues as well) I think it is better that the civil law serve this purpose rather than the criminal law.  Bias against people due to race, sex and other prohibited categories already can subject bigots to substantial pecuniary harm.  Bigotry should not necessarily be criminal, though.  What is considered bigotry or improper bias may change with governments and with societies and over time.

Hate crime may not be Thoughtcrime, but the temptation to make thought criminal is too strong with us and is something we should discourage, not encourage.  Hate crime is a step in the direction of Orwell's dystopia.

Fear of Technology

I've just read a book with the portentous title The End of Ethics in a Technological Society by Lawrence Schmidt, "with Scott Marrotto" (I wonder what "with" means here; usually we see this with books by athletes and celebrities who have problems writing, don't we?).  It's a worthy book I believe, but I think it representative of a school of thought I find disturbing, in that it portrays technology as something apart from humanity and in some sense controlling it, resulting in...."the end of ethics."

This is not to say that the authors think we have no part in creating technology, of course.  However, they seem to think that technology, once created, effects us in ways which diminish us as ethical creatures, leading us to engage in conduct driven by the technology itself and the desire to create more technology.  They claim that the liberal ethical tradition of rights and duties is not adequate to combat the nihilism which has resulted from technology.  They seem to advocate a return to transcendental, steady, uniform values, possibly of a supernatural nature although they also appear to acknowledge that the idea of natural law, which was abandoned in the Enlightenment, need not have a supernatural basis.

I say they "seem" to advocate this because they claim they are not making any proposal of any kind, but are merely pointing out that other ways of combating this nihilism don't work.  This is one of the annoying aspects of the book, the employment of the "I'm not saying what I believe is right is, in fact, right, but everything else is wrong" approach to critical study. 

To me, the book is far more persuasive than the criticism of technology one sees in Heidegger, which seems sentimental and romantic.  Schmidt (with Scott Marrotto!) doesn't invoke joyous peasants placing seeds in the bosom of nature, or chalices, or monstrous hydro-electric plants, which I think is fortunate for us all.  But like Heidegger they take a passive approach to the "problem" of technology.   Heidegger thought only a god can save us (unsurprising I think for someone who thought that Hitler was the "future of Germany and its law"), and they evidently believe a return to a God-sanctioned morality is required to "stop" technology and its effects. 

The Enlightenment no doubt fostered an unrealistic belief in the perfection of humanity, although I think the excitement generated when thought slipped the surly bonds of ancient and medieval conceptions of "science" was understandable.  And I think it's quite correct that technology can and does present a danger.  But I think it's a mistake to think that technology does so as something unnatural to humanity, that turns us away from the spiritual or the higher concerns which should guide us.  Technology is entirely natural in humans and is something we do quite naturally.  As a result, we do it sometimes without thought.  But it is a result of our desire to make life more comfortable and less of a challenge to us, and is used for the satisfaction of other desires as well.  Those desires have always been with us.

Technology has not ended ethics of any kind, as ethics itself is a kind of technology; it is a way of resolving problems, a guide for better living.   What it can do, though, is to eliminate what has stood in the way of the satisfaction of certain desires in the past, and provided reasons for not indulging those desires.  A large portion of the book is devoted to a discussion of the ways in which technology has facilitated warfare.  The authors point out that drones, for example, leave us detached from the harm they cause.  That may well be, but the reasons for war are the same as they have even been, e.g., a desire to dominate other peoples, a need for resources of one kind or another, fear, hatred, etc. 

When we are less likely to suffer harm, when we risk less, we're more inclined to do things, good or bad.  In that sense, technology can impact our moral conduct.  But this doesn't make technology bad in itself (if it can even be thought of as distinct from us). 

If this has a rather Deweyian sound to it, it should (also it should sound like Dewey's interpreter as to technology, Larry Hickman).  Dewey of course would be (and was) subject to criticism as a proponent of Enlightenment thinking, a "progressive" who believed nature should be dominated by humanity.  But I think this is incorrect because Dewey, unlike his critics, didn't distinguish humanity and nature, technology and ethics or spirituality, philosophical problems and the problems of day to day life as they did.  Nor did he think of technology as an end in itself, as he thought means and ends formed a continuum.

The problem of technology must be addressed actively, by requiring the intelligent use of technology--not use in a short-sited fashion, or in the satisfaction of short-term desires.  Intelligence establishes our resources are limited, and that certain technologies destroy our environment.  Intelligence should tell us that we are parts of nature, not superior to it or that our true life is waiting for us beyond it.

There will be no god to save us, nor need there be.  Waiting for that god or any god is a good way of either achieving nothing or sanctioning absolutism and fanaticism when someone appearing to be that god or a precursor to that god comes on the scene, as one would think Heidegger should have known by the time he allowed himself to be interviewed by Der Spiegel.  Either we will save ourselves or we won't.

But we won't save ourselves by becoming Luddites, or ascetics, or monks, or peasants, or little Buddhas, or nature-loving neo-pagans and Wiccans, though--simply because we won't become them.  We will always be technological.

The Queen of the May

I refer to Mary, the mother of Jesus, in her capacity as Queen of the May, a title she holds in addition to multiple versions of "Our Lady", generally of something or someplace, in the religion of my joy and my youth--or, at least, my youth.

I can remember her crowning fairly well, in fact.  I even remember snatches of the song we sung:  "O Mary we crown thee with blossoms today, Queen of the Angels and Queen of the May."  For some reason, I keep remembering the lyric as "Queen of the Rosary" instead of "Queen of the May."  Long ago but not all that far away.  We lived in Michigan then, and I was very young and in a way impressed by the ceremony, and with Mary crowned with flowers and the beginning of spring in the upper Midwest of our Great Republic.  Spring was eagerly awaited and still is in those parts.

Marian devotion is an interesting aspect of the Catholic faith.  It has a long enough history, but in some respects it is also a very modern development.  Mary is mentioned in what we called the Apostles' Creed (the Nicene Creed) as semper virgini; the idea of the Immaculate Conception has been around a very long time.  The Assumption, though, is quite recent in the long history of the Church, pronounced by Pius XII.  Robert Lowell's poem Beyond the Alps addressed that proclamation of the Pontifex Maximus.  He envisioned Mary rising "gorgeous as a jungle bird."  It's a beautiful picture.  John Paul II had a particularly intense devotion to her.  Again, interesting.

Shameless popery as the bastard progeny of the Reformation would no doubt say, or have said in any case.  The worship of the mother of Christ is considered a kind of paganism to some, or a mutation of monotheism.  Alas, that is what I find attractive in it.  The vestiges of paganism in the Church render it far more interesting to me than the dreary, colorless faith and churches of Luther and Calvin and other Protestant denominations.  There is a human truth and need involved in the ancient devotion to the mother goddesses such as Isis and Magna Mater.  I'm frankly baffled by the fact that the Catholic Church has sought since Vatican II to become more and more Protestant, and to me more and more dull.  Perhaps my religious sense is too aesthetic.

I used to go to Novenas with my mother, there to call upon Mary in her capacity as Our Lady of Perpetual Help.  Definitely not "Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility" created by Garrison Keillor.  That's amusing of course, but Mary is traditionally a comforter and someone who intervenes with the sterner God, Father and/or Son, to forgive if not forget.  The hymns sung were lovely, particularly "Immaculate Mary" and "Mother Dearest, Mother Fairest."  It's unsurprising that Mother's Day is celebrated in May.

Springtime is necessarily welcome in the northern countries, and it's appropriate to celebrate it, regardless of the manner of celebration, I think.  The Queen of the May has other incarnations as well in northern Europe, where yearly some bewildered girl takes the place of the Queen in parades.  It's the season of rebirth of course, which has been considered a time of redemption and resurrection for millenia.

We can't wholly detach ourselves from what we are, and we are thinking organisms in a vast universe which is overwhelming.  That we take comfort in what we may of that universe is unsurprising.  We only flounder, I think, when we try to take comfort in something beyond it.