Ethics Newsline®

In his 1953 novel In the Wet, Nevil Shute describes a hypothetical meritocracy built on a multiple-vote system. At birth, you get one vote. But with additional qualifications — including university education, raising a family, foreign travel, wealth generation, or church service — you can get up to six more. His point: Those with greater accomplishments, he explains, “ought to have more say in the affairs of the country” than those with less.

Shute’s proposition, while superficially intriguing, is overly complex. Here’s a simpler option: Why not give more votes to those who scream the loudest? It doesn’t matter what you scream about. All that counts are the decibels. Nothing unfair about it: Anyone can learn to bellow and howl. The more noise you make, the more votes you get.

Put that way, it sounds patently silly — until you start thinking about last week’s Supreme Court decision opening the sluice gates of so-called soft money for political campaigns. Until last Monday, a 2002 law effectively barred corporations, unions, and wealthy individuals from spending heavily — in effect, screaming loudly — in the last weeks of a campaign to influence its outcome. Now they’re freer to do so.

The law in question, known as McCain-Feingold after its Senate sponsors, John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), recognized the wisdom of already-existing laws preventing any entity — whether a corporation, a union, or an individual — from making large contributions to a candidate’s coffers. The logic is simple: When candidates must raise money from thousands of regular voters rather than from a few special-interest sources, there’s less chance that an election can be bought. But before 2000, a loophole remained: Large contributions from single entities, unable to flow directly to candidates, were being given to political parties. This “soft money” was often used during the final weeks of a campaign for ads that purported to discuss issues rather than promote personalities, but that in fact attacked opposition candidates. McCain-Feingold limited such end-of-the-race expenditures.

With its 5-4 ruling on June 25, the Supreme Court reopened the big-money spigot. The majority cited as justification the First Amendment, which prevents Congress from prohibiting free speech. In the court’s view, the funding of campaigns is a means of spreading political ideas, so any limit on funding interferes with free speech. Put that way, it sounds plausible, until you reduce the argument to its core. What the court is saying is that money equals ideas — an equation as simple as it is dangerous.

Why? Because money and ideas are different things. Ideas are expressed by individuals. People don’t earn ideas, inherit them, possess title to them, or barter them for other ideas. Ideas don’t grow by husbandry nor diminish through inflation. In the rare circumstance where ideas are so unique as to require copyright or trademark protection, they can become a source of wealth. But most ideas — what I think I’ll do today, whom I think I’ll marry, which party I think I’ll vote for — have no monetary value.

What’s money’s relation to all of this? It can purchase one medium for ideas, named in the U. S. Constitution as speech. In other words, money can turn up the volume. It can take a small idea and, for good or bad, magnify it in the public eye. It can do so through genuine outreach or perverse spin, authentic promulgation or sleazy publicity. Either way, it can blast out an idea so loudly and persistently that it drowns out all other voices.

What’s surprising is not the discovery that money is the boom box of politics. What’s surprising is that in 2007 — with so many historical examples of tyrants and despots controlling masses of people by taking charge of the volume control in Communist, Nazi, and apartheid regimes — we should have forgotten that fact.

Democracy isn’t about loudness. It’s about ideas. The moral basis of democracy is the provision of a one-to-one correspondence between the vote of an individual and the direction of the nation — to ensure that each is equally counted and that the voice of the majority reigns. It recognizes that the worth of each voter depends not (as Nevil Shute imagined) on a résumé of accomplishments. Nor does it depend on a stash of money or a voice that drowns out other voices. It depends upon each voter’s innate ability to conceive of and act upon ideas.

Lots of things influence a voter’s ideas: education, the media, local conversation, back-fence gossip. When loudness becomes the principal influence, the door is opened for the few to control the many. We’ve read that unethical narrative too many times in history to be persuaded by it.

©2007 Institute for Global Ethics

“I respect the jury’s verdict. But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby’s sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison.”

– Excerpt from a statement released by U.S. president George W. Bush, who on Monday erased the prison sentence imposed on Lewis “Scooter” Libby, former chief of staff to vice president Dick Cheney, who was found guilty of obstructing justice and lying to investigators in the leak case that burned CIA operative Valerie Plame

WASHINGTON
Among the opinions issued during a busy session of the U.S. Supreme Court last week:

• The high court on Thursday ruled that race cannot be a factor in assigning students to public schools. The justices’ sharply divided 5-4 opinion, reports CNN, reflects the deep legal, social, and ethical divides over the volatile issue of race and education. In a ruling written by chief justice John Roberts, the court’s conservative majority argued that diversity should be assured in ways other than placement of students based on ethnicity: “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” But the dissenting minority, led by justice John Paul Stevens, argued that the majority’s ruling will “obstruct efforts by state and local governments to deal effectively with the growing re-segregation of public schools.”
• In another 5-4 decision, the high court held that a mentally ill Texas man could not be executed. According to a report from the Christian Science Monitor, the court sent the case of Scott Louis Panetti, a death-row inmate, back to the state’s lower courts for clarification of his mental status. The majority ruled that because Panetti has a long history of mental illness, he may lack a rational understanding of the purpose of his sentence. The ruling coincides with a trend of recent high court decisions that set tougher constitutional requirements for executing juveniles and the mentally retarded, according to the Monitor.
• The justices reversed a 96-year-old precedent that has had a profound impact on business practices and ethics — the laws prohibiting pricing agreements between manufacturers and retailers. Such agreements have been viewed as a violation of antitrust law, but last week’s decision opens the door for manufacturers to set a firm minimum price — rather than the “suggested retail price” — that stores must charge. In writing the 5-4 majority opinion, justice Anthony Kennedy contended that minimum price agreements are not anticompetitive, and that price-fixing complaints involving manufacturers and retailers should be considered on a case-by-case basis. The International Herald Tribune reports that the ruling reflects the court’s increasingly “flexible” approach to antitrust law in recent years.
• In a blow to White House policy, the court said that it will consider requests from prisoners at Guantánamo Bay to challenge their detention via the U.S. court system. According to the Financial Times, the move could be a significant setback to the Bush administration, which argues that terror detainees do not have the right to access the court system and can be judged in secret by closed military tribunals. Guantánamo has been at the vortex of a swirling debate about the rights of terror suspects, with some attorneys maintaining that denying any access to the justice system is a violation of legal ethics, and former administration members, including Colin Powell, publicly calling for Guantánamo’s closing.

WASHINGTON
The on-again, off-again battle over immigration reform, which in recent weeks revolved around an increasingly bitter dispute over the ethical implications of creating a path to legal status for those who entered the United States illegally, is apparently off — perhaps for years.

With supporters of the measure unable to come up with enough votes to overcome parliamentary detours that have sidetracked the bill for weeks, the measure was pulled from the Senate floor for the second time, and is now unlikely to resurface until a new president comes to power, according to an analysis from the Washington Post.

Republicans who opposed the bill, breaking ranks with President Bush, generally voiced approval of the outcome. Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), had characterized the measure as “a big amnesty with inadequate enforcement,” the Los Angeles Times reports.

It was the issue of the definition of “amnesty” that occupied center stage in the battle over the reform package. Backers of the bill, an unlikely coalition of Democrats, moderate Republicans, and President Bush, had argued that the measure would shepherd currently illegal workers into the mainstream and back onto the tax rolls, and would create streamlined immigration procedures for experts in many scientific, literary, and artistic fields.

But opponents moved in from all sides of the political spectrum, with some immigration advocates condemning visas for highly educated workers as elitist. Some Democrats, notes the Baltimore Sun, opposed the measure on the ground that it would take jobs away from low-wage U.S. workers.

According to the New York Times, many opponents expressed doubt that the government could implement the huge reforms specified in the measure, such as enhanced border security and massive scrutiny of employers.

“People look out and they see the failures of government,” said Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.), “whether it’s Hurricane Katrina or the inability to get enough passports out for people, and they say, ‘How is the government going to accomplish all of this?’ “

JERUSALEM
Israeli president Moshe Katsav last week avoided possible rape charges by accepting a plea bargain, admitting to lesser sexual offenses and immediately resigning from office.

The Agence France-Presse reports that the 61-year-old president, who could have faced up to 16 years in prison if convicted of rape, will pay a fine and receive a suspended sentence.

He is the second consecutive president to be driven out of office under a cloud. The late Ezer Weizman resigned in 2000 amid bribery allegations, according to the AFP.

Katsav faced allegations of rape and sexual harassment by women who had worked for him. He resigned his presidency, a largely ceremonial position, two weeks before the scheduled end of his term.

Katsav’s plea bargain was harshly criticized by several legal experts who told the Jerusalem Post that Israel’s attorney general let Katsav off too lightly, possibly because prosecutors and investigators were intimidated by the power and wealth of the ruling elite.

Also, organizations representing women and sexual assault victims planned protests to demand that the plea bargain be revoked and Katsav be tried on the original rape charges, according to Haaretz.

A government prosecutor also has asked for the deal to be canceled if Katsav does not specifically admit responsibility for the charges in court, reports Haaretz.

SYDNEY
An Australian government crackdown on child abuse in Aboriginal territories has set off a firestorm of ethical debate, with critics claiming that the policies are draconian and paternalistic.

Australian prime minster John Howard has announced plans to send police and troops into 70 indigenous settlements in lands in the Northern Territory, ordering them to investigate claims of child abuse, enforce bans on alcohol and pornography, and monitor how welfare payments are spent, reports the London-based Guardian.

Critics say the focus on child abuse diverts attention from longstanding and neglected problems such as poverty, unemployment, and lack of basic services.

Howard’s move comes in response to a recent report showing widespread child sexual abuse and rampant spread of sexually transmitted diseases in children throughout the territory, reports the Australian, a national newspaper.

But some Aboriginal leaders charge that parents in some settlements are fleeing with their children, fearing heavy-handed enforcement tactics by police, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Press reports also indicated that some in the medical community have objected to a plan to have doctors examine children for signs of sexual abuse, saying compulsory examinations would violate medical ethics guidelines and would be inconclusive if not conducted by specialists in the field.

At the same time, some representatives of the Territory have disputed the claims of the critics. The Australian Age quotes Noel Pearson, a Cape York indigenous leader, as branding the outcry “a form of madness” and accusing the media of “finding any excuse under the sun to not do anything.”

WASHINGTON
U.S. banking officials last week cracked down on what started as an ethical issue and mushroomed into a financial meltdown: high-interest mortgage loans made to individuals with poor credit records.

So-called subprime lending has led to a surge in defaults and a skyrocketing foreclosure rate in the past five years, according to a Bloomberg report.

According to rules issued late last week by the Federal Reserve and other banking regulators, lenders should more scrupulously verify income levels, be more forthcoming about possible interest-rate hikes in adjustable mortgages, and gauge more appropriately whether borrowers can afford to meet higher payments in the future, the Reuters news agency reports.

In addition, reports MarketWatch, banks must limit prepayment penalties, which under some circumstances can lock consumers into high rates and limit their ability to pay off the loan by refinancing.

While subprime lenders have argued that those who take out loans must exercise personal responsibility, critics contend that the industry is predatory and victimizes unsophisticated borrowers with low “teaser” rates that skyrocket to levels beyond their means to pay.

The practice also has been characterized as racist because minorities are hit hardest. In an editorial, the Houston Chronicle, which is located in a city where problems related to the economics of housing are particularly acute, claims that regulators must reckon with “the blatant institutional racism that has been integral to the abuses.”

“A 2006 report by the Consumer Federation of America revealed that 53 percent of black borrowers and 37.8 percent of Hispanic borrowers receive subprime loans, compared to 21.6 percent of white customers and 13.5 percent of Asian,” the editorial claims. “In many instances, the minority borrowers were steered to subprime loans when their credit history might have permitted more favorable terms.”

Industry analysts also note that the troubles in the subprime market became acute after many loans were extended in 2006 and 2007 to people with increasingly weak credit ratings on the assumption that rising house prices would allow them to re-mortgage the property to meet rising payments.

But what happened, reports the Times of London, is that housing prices plunged, shredding that safety net and causing several funds investing in subprime loans to close and sell their assets. The collapse included some firms in the United Kingdom.

MONTGOMERY, Ala.
Former Alabama governor Don Siegelman and former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy both received tough prison sentences last week in a case that has joined Enron and WorldCom as a symbol of business ethics gone awry.

Siegelman was sentenced to more than seven years in federal prison while Scrushy received a term of slightly less than seven years, according to the Associated Press. Both men were taken into custody immediately after the judge denied their requests to remain free pending appeal.

The two were convicted of various bribery and obstruction charges, with Scrushy also found guilty of mail fraud, according to the Jurist, a publication of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.

The case centered on charges that Siegelman accepted a half-million-dollar political contribution from Scrushy in exchange for appointing Scrushy, who ran an Alabama-based health care company, to a state panel that governed hospitals, according to the Press-Register of Mobile.

Prosecutors charged that Scrushy then manipulated hospital building permits in ways that favored HealthSouth.

HealthSouth was at one time the largest health-care provider in the United States.

The judge who imposed the unexpectedly harsh sentences said the case had damaged public trust in government and that the prison time was necessary to assure the public that “justice is blind.”

OTTAWA
Privacy watchdogs across Canada are expressing ethical reservations about that nation’s new “no-fly” list, which is intended to keep suspected terrorists off airplanes, and want the use of the list suspended until reforms are enacted.

According to a report from the National Post, federal privacy commissioner Jennifer Stoddard and 12 regional privacy officials last week unanimously endorsed a resolution calling for “urgently required” reforms to the air transportation security legislation.

The resolution states that the measure, called the Passenger Protect Program, “involves the secretive use of personal information in a way that will profoundly impact privacy and other related human rights such as freedom of association and expression and the right to mobility,” the Globe & Mail reports.

As part of the program, a “specified persons” list is provided to all airlines transporting passengers into or out of Canada. The list, reports the CBC, contains the name, birth date, and gender of anyone the federal government says is a security risk, including people who have been linked to terrorism or involved in a crime related to air transport.

About a thousand names are believed to be on the list, making it much smaller than the U.S. version, which contains about 44,000 names, according to the CBC.

The names are not made public, so passengers will not know they are flagged until they attempt to board a plane.

Among the chief complaints of the privacy watchdogs is that the list contains many common names that may be shared by hundreds or thousands of Canadians, reports the CTV Network. They also argue that Canadians will not have rights to appeal, adjudication, or compensation for out-of-pocket expenses or damages.

While the Privacy Commission’s objections are not binding, and the federal government has not yet indicated its willingness to amend the program, a parliamentary committee does plan to hold hearings on the matter in the fall.

BUCHAREST, Romania; SOFIA, Bulgaria
Romania and Bulgaria, provisionally admitted into the European Union after promising to curb internal corruption and violence, will retain their coveted memberships despite criticism by EU administrators.

The International Herald Tribune reports that EU Justice and Home Affairs commissioner Franco Frattini said the two nations, which joined the bloc in January, need to accelerate anticorruption efforts and streamline the backlog of cases awaiting action in the court systems.

While the commission report acknowledges that some improvements have been made, it will take several more years before the judicial systems in Romania and Bulgaria fully comply with EU standards, according to the Budapest Business Journal.

The Sofia Echo said the lukewarm endorsement came as something of a surprise, as officials there had feared tougher treatment in light of the shocking number of contract killings plaguing the nation.

But UPI notes that the countries are not totally off the hook: Frattini warned the nations that if they fail to show significant improvement by June 2008, they could face sanctions.

Entry into the EU marked a milestone in both nations’ histories, with jubilant crowds dancing in the streets of both capitals when Romania and Bulgaria were inducted after the clock struck midnight on New Year’s Eve. Membership has its privileges: Romania is expecting more than $2 billion in EU contributions during its first year of membership, and Bulgaria is slated for $896 million.

From Harris Interactive®:

“In May 2007, Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva took steps to make an inexpensive generic version of a patented AIDS drug manufactured by Merck & Co. by issuing a compulsory license that would bypass Merck’s patent. A compulsory license is a legal mechanism that allows a country to manufacture or buy generic versions of patented drugs while paying the patent holder only a small royalty. Most adults in the U.S. (57%) say they are in favor of the country’s decision, while 20 percent say they are opposed.

“Overall, sixty-one percent of U.S. adults believe poorer countries should be allowed to break companies’ patents on HIV/AIDS drugs if doing so would help them treat more of their population. Thirty-three percent say they believe that ignoring companies’ patents on HIV/AIDS drugs hinders the development of new drugs, while 40 percent say they disagree with this statement….

“Forty percent think the global HIV/AIDS epidemic has worsened in the last five years, down from 58 percent in 2004 who said the same. Sixteen percent say they feel the global HIV/AIDS epidemic has gotten better, while 32 percent say things have stayed about the same.

“Ultimately, the public strongly believes that prevention programs that teach about and distribute condoms are the most effective means of preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS. By comparison, the public is more ambivalent about the efficacy of abstinence programs. Seventy six percent agree that programs that teach about and distribute condoms will be most effective in preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS, while half (51%) say they agree that the best way to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS is through programs that teach abstinence….”

“It is the starved imagination, not the well-nourished, that is afraid.”

– E. M. Forster (English novelist, 1879-1970)