If you don’t live in Texas, chances are you’re not aware of William Krar. You may not know that an FBI raid on his property in April 2003 netted more than 500,000 rounds of ammunition, 65 pipe bombs, and nearly two pounds of sodium cyanide, along with antigovernment and white supremacist literature.

Krar’s case “ranks at the very top of all domestic terrorist arrests in the past 20 years in terms of the lethality of the arsenal,” terrorism expert Daniel Levitas told the Christian Science Monitor in December 2003. Yet “outside Tyler, Texas, the case is almost unknown,” the Monitor reported, noting that there had been “two government press releases and a handful of local stories, but no press conference and no coverage in the national newspapers.”

Now suppose Krar had been a Muslim. Does anyone doubt that this story would have topped the national news, making his name a household word?

That disparity in response lies at the heart of a soon-to-be-released report on “Violent Extremism and Radicalization.” Prepared by the EastWest Institute, it cuts through the popular equation “terrorism = Islam” to search for deeper answers. The report’s authors — Levitas is one — looked at extremist violence in three communities based in the Abrahamic faiths: extremist Jewish settler movements in the West Bank, Christian Identity militias in the United States, and Muslim radicals in Great Britain.

“What is most striking,” the draft report finds in comparing the three, “is the similarity of the worldview and the rationale for violence.” That rationale centers on “a Manichean outlook,” by which the authors mean an apocalyptic dualism that reduces everything to a mortal struggle between good and evil. Such an outlook produces “a case of ‘us’ versus ‘them,’ where members of the same faith can be branded apostates and enemies if they are perceived as too willing to compromise ‘pure’ beliefs.” In each faith, violent actors claim that “God did not intend for civilization to take its current shape; and that the state had failed the righteous and genuine members of that nation, and therefore God’s law supersedes man’s law.” In their minds, that failure justifies violence in God’s name.

The report develops a number of recommendations for dealing with extremist violence wherever it crops up. Among them:

• Act consistently. Unless “the spectrum of existing laws” is fully enforced, a selective lack of response exacerbates the feeling of injustice upon which extremism thrives. Case in point: William Krar, whose 11-year sentence would almost surely have been far more severe had his literature promoted al Qaeda.
• Don’t militarize the conflict. Avoiding the terminology of war when discussing terrorism, as well as responding with police instead of soldiers whenever possible, sends the signal that extremist violence is mere criminal activity, undercutting the extremists’ cherished claim to political legitimacy.
• Respond proportionately. By ensuring that every government response is “consistent, fair, and proportionate,” operating in “geographic areas where extremist sentiment is known to exist,” governments can preserve civil liberties and the rule of law — two things to which extremists are violently opposed.
• Avoid Manichean rhetoric. To condemn terrorism simply as evil accepts the extremists’ own terms. “Trying to engage in a competition with religious extremists over who can offer a simpler answer to complex problems will be a losing proposition every time,” the authors note. Instead, the counter-message should be shaped to “address specifically how extremists are violating the tenets of their faith.”

Discussing the report at a prepublication conference in New York last week, an international and interreligious group of experts gravitated toward this last point, and for good reason. Each of the three extremist groups takes the recruiting of new members very seriously. For each, the pitch depends on the same core arguments. You reduce the complexities of the world to black-and-white, we/they polarities. You emphasize that “we” have a long history of humiliation and disrespect which “they” have perpetrated. You define the struggle as an ultimate, cosmic Armageddon upon which the future of the world depends. You use selective religious texts to support that argument. And you convince the recruit that he or she has a glorious destiny in fighting to save the world.

To students of extremist violence, these points aren’t new. But this report usefully puts them into a cross-cultural, interreligious context. It also emphasizes the need to focus (in one researcher’s words) on the “flow” rather than the “stock” of extremists, disrupting future growth rather than simply eliminating current actors.

Bottom line? While the authors don’t directly say so, there’s a powerful moral message here. To the extent that we ourselves indulge a public discourse that is Manichean, simplistic, and polarizing — on talk radio and television, through inflammatory campaigning and politicking, and in street-corner and barbershop chats — we’re making extremist recruiting easier than it should be. Terrorism isn’t simply an Islamic phenomenon. Nor is it something that governments alone fight “over there.” It’s something we all address right here, as we choose whether to imagine a merely right-versus-wrong world or see a bigger-picture reality.

©2007 Institute for Global Ethics

In last week’s commentary, Rushworth Kidder speculated on three things that must change in order for the perception of the nation’s moral barometer to rise. He also invited readers to share their suggestions.

Well, share you did. We received many thoughtful letters, some quite lengthy, and it would be difficult to present them in their entirety. What follows are some of the areas for improvement you suggested, edited down to bullet points with an extracted sentence or two for context:

• “Increased respect for human life.”
• “More and improved role models in society. They could be parents, employers, politicians, teachers, coaches, whatever — but the world really needs them now.”
• “Increased number of absolutes that the majority can adopt. This would facilitate agreement on what is moral and what is not.”
• “A government of the people and for the people, and government leaders/politicians who truly represent us and not work only to gratify their own ego and pocket book.”
• “A paradigm shift toward: ‘We are all Brothers/Sisters and there is enough to go around for everyone of us, and we don’t have to hoard and grab.’ “
• “Demand that companies pay their CEOs in accordance with their value, not an over-inflated salary with huge stock options, etc.”
• “Place more value on honesty and ethical behavior by refusing to bow to popular culture.”
• “Greater personal responsibility. We are still blame-shifting, everything from frivolous lawsuits to paying our bills.”
• “An honest free press. Our media seeks the sensational. They build mountains of controversy in order to sell more air, more paper.”
• “Our lack of unity. We are boxed into reds and blues, young and old, black and white, or believers and nonbelievers. Our common ground is rarely, if ever, articulated by our leaders, our press, our educators, or our parents.”
• “Corporate Ineffectiveness. Corporations have fallen back into the rut of a ‘command and control’ mentality (to borrow the expression from Margaret Wheatley). This mindset treats people as ‘things’ and human beings only relate to corporate executives as ‘cost to serve’ margins.”
• “Allow mistakes. Leaders in all arenas — schools, the community, politics, the media, corporations, police departments, parents, whatever — must allow the people/children whom they lead, mentor, or are developing to make mistakes.”
• “Value people who contribute every day to our society as a whole and its future.”
• “Return to traditional moral codes. Our nation continues to drift away from a common definition of morality, and as long as divergent measures of morality exist (and replicate), surveys will continue to show a large block of disenfranchised Americans with a falling moral barometer.”
• “Affirmation of the reality of absolute truth. Our government education system is force-feeding a new generation of Americans with the fallacy that a pluralistic society requires all members to affirm truthfulness of conflicting systems of belief, eliminating their ability (and will?) to discriminate between truth and error.”
• “Be honest enough to be willing to learn more; self-righteousness is a dead end, detrimental to one’s own well-being and also to collective good. Especially learn more about all religions; the effect would reduce fear and promote respect for and appreciation of others.”
• “Be intelligent about the difference between that sense of fairness that benefits all equally, and religiously biased opinions that tilt the balance unequally when allowed to insidiously influence the actions of those in positions of power and authority.”
• “More honesty at the top [in government].”
• “More honesty in business.”
• “More honesty in our personal relationships.”
• “A societal emphasis on collaboration instead of competition. By its very nature, competition not only sends the message that the most important thing is to win, but winning always comes at the expense of another — someone has to lose for me to win.)”
• “Increased tolerance of Christians. While not all who state that they are Christians do not maintain a high moral code in their own lives, true Christianity as taught and practiced by Christ and as observed today by Christ-followers does in fact embrace a very high moral level. Increasing, as a minimum, the media’s tolerance of Christianity would go a long way to encourage greater moral behavior indirectly, if not directly.”
• “Congress must make earmarks transparent to all, instead of having the gall to continue to play earmark hide-and-seek with the public.”
• “Congress must consent to having an external committee monitor its ethics instead of fooling itself that it can correct misdeeds internally.”
• “Greater financial equity.”
• “Comity, which goes beyond civility.”
• “Relativism. We need a ‘dash’ or ‘pinch’ of it. While recognizing the difficulty of creating a line not to be crossed off of an absolute, the strength of a group is in the conversation to define that softer line.”

There were many overlapping responses, some of which were embraced in the list above. To give you an idea of the relative weight of the responses: Several readers cited adherence to the Constitution, in various contexts, as something in need of improvement. Financial equity, especially in terms of executive compensation and corporate greed, was repeatedly cited and woven into at least half a dozen replies. A sizeable percentage of readers cited integrity and truth telling as an area in need of improvement, along with tolerance, both in terms of others’ political beliefs and religions. Topping the list was civility, a quality seen as lacking in entertainment, politics, and the workplace.

“To sanction such presidential authority to order the military to seize and indefinitely detain civilians, even if the President calls them ‘enemy combatants,’ would have disastrous consequences for the constitution — and the country.”

– Excerpt from a 2-1 decision last week by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which rejected the right of the government to detain indefinitely a legal U.S. resident without filing charges. The ruling comes in the case of an alleged al Qaeda sleeper agent, Ali al-Marri, who was arrested in 2001. The White House says it will appeal to the full court, notes the Associated Press.

DURHAM, N.C.
A legal ethics committee last week disbarred Mike Nifong, the North Carolina prosecutor who waged a relentless and ultimately disastrous rape prosecution against three Duke University lacrosse players.

The Charlotte Observer and Associated Press report that the panel determined that Nifong lied and cheated and exploited the case to boost his reelection campaign for district attorney of Durham County.

According to the News and Observer of Raleigh, the decision marked the first

time in the history of the state that a prosecutor has been disbarred for deceptive courtroom activity.

Nifong brought charges against the players when he was embroiled in a tight reelection campaign, reports the International Herald Tribune. He continued to pursue the case even as it crumbled, and was accused of pressing trumped-up charges against the Duke players, who are white, in an effort to solidify support among Durham’s black voters.

The woman who made the rape charges, which later were determined to have been fabricated, is black, reports the Herald Tribune.

Nifong’s disbarment came one day after he admitted that he “unwittingly” lied to judges and made prejudicial statements in the case, the Los Angeles Times News Service reports. Nifong, who said he planned to resign as Durham D.A., apologized to the players “to the extent that my actions have caused them pain,” and said that continuing in office “is not furthering the cause of justice.”

Nifong had no comment on his disbarment.

His lawyer, David Freedman, told the McClatchy news service that Nifong will not appeal the decision.

At the same time, Freedman struggled to explain the actions of the man who had spent his entire 28-year career as a Durham prosecutor.

“Why, why did we get to the place we got?” Williamson asked, according to the McClatchy report. “At the root of it is self-deception arising out of self-interest…. His self-interest collided with a very volatile mix of race, sex, and class, a situation which, if it were a plot in a John Grisham novel, would be considered to be too contrived.”

LOS ANGELES
The death of a California woman who lay bleeding on an emergency room floor and died after 9-1-1 dispatchers refused to contact paramedics to take her to another hospital has focused attention on the ethical responsibilities of emergency personnel.

Edith Isabel Rodriguez, 43, died of an intestinal perforation on May 9 at Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital in Los Angeles. Relatives charged that she was bleeding from the mouth and in extreme pain for the 45 minutes that she languished in the waiting area, according to reports from Time magazine and Bakersfield TV station KGET.

Her death in May went all but unnoticed until the Los Angeles Times gathered security-camera footage and 9-1-1 tapes to document how witnesses unsuccessfully pleaded with sheriff’s dispatchers for help.

The case, according to Los Angeles Times writer Charles Ornstein, has become a “symbol of bureaucratic indifference,” and has “crystallized people’s fears that even in their most desperate moments, the emergency system won’t take them seriously.”

The Times quotes University of Pennsylvania ethicist Arthur Caplan as questioning, “What kind of a society are we when we can’t even render aid to someone who’s in their own blood and vomit on the floor and you’re mopping around them? It’s a kind of morality tale of a society gone cold.”

Officials in Los Angeles County have threatened to shut down the hospital if administrators cannot come up with a plan to correct deficiencies that were identified in a previous federal inspection, the Associated Press reports.

The emergency room employee who failed to arrange an examination has resigned, according to the AP, and “written findings” have been placed in the files of several others.

OTTAWA
Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper last week nominated a constitutional lawyer and longtime government official to take over as the new federal ethics commissioner.

Mary Dawson will administer the new Conflict of Interest Act, which lays out ethics guidelines and post-employment rules for public office holders, the Vancouver Sun reports.

Political observers say Dawson’s tenure probably will determine whether the ethics commission becomes a credible institution or remains mired in political squabbling, according to an analysis from the Toronto Globe & Mail.

The previous ethics commissioner, Bernard Shapiro, was accused by Harper of political bias and had run-ins with several members of Parliament, according to the Toronto Star.

Harper also forwarded the nomination of Christiane Ouimet as public integrity commissioner, responsible for enforcing the Canadian law that protects government whistle-blowers.

Both nominations are subject to approval by various parliamentary committees, CTV reports.

BATTLE CREEK, Mich.
Kellogg Co., the world’s biggest cereal maker, says it will make some of its food healthier or, if the company’s test kitchens can’t reproduce the taste, keep the formulas intact and stop marketing to children under 12.

The Dow Jones News Service notes that the move could be risky. While Kellogg faces pressure from child health advocates who point to skyrocketing rates of childhood obesity, the firm also is wary of the fact that tinkering with successful formulas can alienate the existing customer base.

The Reuters news agency notes that last year Kellogg was threatened with a suit related to its advertising by two advocacy groups, the Center for Science in the Public Interest and the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood.

In addition to product changes, Kellogg’s also plans to include nutrition information and health tips on its websites, according to a report from the BBC.

Television station WWMT, located in Kellogg’s hometown of Battle Creek, Michigan, reports that the firm will make the changes by the end of 2008. At present, about half of Kellogg products marketed to children under 12 would not meet the proposed guidelines.

WASHINGTON
Three major ethics-related stories topped the news in Washington last week:

• A federal judge ordered former vice-presidential aide Lewis “Scooter” Libby to surrender in six to eight weeks to begin serving his prison term. Libby, convicted of lying to investigators in a case involving leaks to the press, had asked that he remain free pending his appeal, reports the Washington Post.
• A fifth Justice Department official involved in the firings of federal prosecutors is planning on resigning. ABC News reports that Mike Elston, the chief of staff to Deputy attorney general Paul McNulty, who also is resigning, will join a private law firm. The firings, which critics maintain were politically motivated, touched off an ethics controversy that continues to threaten attorney general Alberto Gonzales’s credibility with Congress.
• An immigration reform package, derailed in the Senate primarily because of the question of whether it provided an amnesty to illegal aliens, may be back on the table soon, reports USA Today. President Bush is seeking to mollify unhappy members of his own party by including an amendment providing additional funds for border security.

LEIPZIG, Germany
A corruption scandal is dominating the news from Germany, with events in the eastern state of Saxony claiming the job of the intelligence chief there.

Bloomberg reports that Saxony officials fired Rainer Stock for allegedly failing to disclose evidence that could incriminate local politicians and police.

According to the German news service Deutsche Welle, the evolving scandal involves an alleged link between Saxony politicians and organized crime, including charges of complicity in bribery, child prostitution, and interference in court trials.

Another German publication, Spiegel Online International, reports that the probe has prompted criticism of Thomas de Maiziere, the top aide to the country’s chancellor, for not doing enough to combat corruption in the Saxony political establishment when he was the state’s interior minister.

Maiziere told UPI that he had no information about the alleged corruption in Saxony, and is “not in the picture” of what has been found.

VARIOUS DATELINES
The fine line between imitation and piracy has been blurred in recent months in several high-profile cases involving trademarks, intellectual property, and the fashion industry. Among the stories:

• Canada’s National Post reports that while blatant counterfeiting — copying a designer’s label and pasting it onto a cheap imitation — is clearly illegal, the situation is not always clear-cut when it comes to the lines and colors in the design of a dress. “The ethics and legalities behind a copycat — or its more pejorative synonym, a knock-off — of a creative idea are less clear, involving many shades of gray that just happen to be the hottest color in fashion right now,” writes the Posts’s Nathalie Atkinson. She notes that while there have been several legislative attempts to solve the issue, the “dynamics of creativity” remain complex.
• The online auction site eBay has announced a new initiative against online fraud. According to the New York Times, eBay has stepped back from its hands-off attitude of the past and now aggressively fights the sale of counterfeit items and has revised its feedback system to provide more information to sellers and buyers. The Times reports that the results appear promising: eBay is expected to report a 60 percent drop in the number of complaints from makers of luxury goods claming that counterfeits are being hawked on the auction site.
• The Agence France-Presse reports that executives of major companies and trade organizations are urging the U.S. government to clamp down on fake products emanating from China and Russia. The head of the National Association of Manufacturers also called on President Bush to appoint an intellectual property czar to the White House staff.

NEW YORK
The financial services company TIAA-CREF last week announced that it will give most of its policyholders an advisory vote on the firm’s own executive compensation.

TIAA-CREF, which manages $414 billion and provides pensions, insurance, and other financial services primarily for educators, says it wants to set an example for other public companies to follow, the Associated Press reports.

The Financial Times notes that the move is the first time a major U.S. company has held a nonbinding vote on compensation practices, a practice common in the United Kingdom. Policyholders will weigh in indirectly, voting on whether the firm has adequate disclosure policies for compensation rather than voting on specific levels of pay.

According to Dow Jones Financial News Online, TIAA-CREF’s action comes as the U.S. Senate examines related legislation to rein in what some critics say are out-of-control compensation packages unrelated to executive performance.

From CareerBuilder.com:

“Don’t be surprised if you see more dads on the playground with the kids during the workday. According to a new CareerBuilder.com survey, 37 percent of working dads say they’d leave their jobs if their spouse or partner made enough money to support the family. If given the choice, another 38 percent would take a pay-cut to spend more time with their kids. The CareerBuilder.com survey, ‘Working Dads 2007,’ was conducted from February 15 to March 6, 2007 and included 1,521 men, employed full-time, with children under the age of 18 living at home.

“Nearly one-in-four (24 percent) working dads feel work is negatively impacting their relationship with their children. Forty-eight percent have missed a significant event in their child’s life due to work at least once in the last year and nearly one-in-five (18 percent) have missed four or more.

“According to the survey, the time working dads spend on work far exceeds the time spent with their children. More than one-in-four (27 percent) working dads say they spend more than 50 hours a week on work and nearly one-in-ten (8 percent) spend more than 60 hours. In terms of the time they spend with their children, one-in-four (25 percent) working dads spend less than one hour with their kids each day. Forty-two percent spend less than two hours each day.

“While more companies today are offering various programs and options to promote work/life balance, some working dads say their employers are lacking in this area. Thirty-six percent of working dads say their company does not offer flexible work arrangements such as flexible schedules, telecommuting, job sharing and more….”

“The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.”

– Edmund Burke (Irish statesman and orator, 1729-1797)