Empathy or Antipathy?

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Perry Event 2/1/2010

Texas GOP Governor Rick Perry

        Three recent events, each of  which occurred during the Republican Presidential debates illustrate, in stark relief, the coarsening of American politics but these events also raise more profound, troubling questions. On September 7, 2011, at the Republican presidential debate held at the Reagan library, NBC news commentator Brian Williams reminded Texas Governor Rick Perry that his state "has executed 234 death row inmates, more than any other governor in modern times," to which the conservative audience responded with cheers and applause.
   
         "Have you struggled to sleep at night with the idea that any one of those might have been innocent?"Williams asked.

          "No, sir, I've never struggled with that at all," Perry replied. "In the state of Texas, if you come into our state and you kill one of our children, you kill a police officer, you're involved with another crime and you kill one of our citizens, you will face the ultimate justice in the state of Texas, and that is you will be executed." The audience cheered once again.

    "What do you make of that dynamic that just happened here, the mention of the execution of 234 people drew applause?" Williams asked.

    "I think Americans understand justice," Perry replied. "I think Americans are clearly in the vast majority of cases, supportive of capital punishment. When you have committed heinous crimes against our citizens, and it's a state-by-state issue, but in the state of Texas, our citizens have made that decision, and they made it clear, and they don't want you to commit those crimes against our citizens, and if you do, you will face the ultimate justice."

    Five days later, at the Florida Expo Center during the second debate Texas Congressman Ron Paul, a physician by training, was asked by CNN news commentator Wolf Blitzer about society's responsibility if a healthy 30-year-old man who had decided not to buy health insurance suddenly fell into a coma and required intensive care for six months. Congressman Paul - a libertarian who named his son after Ayn Rand - said it shouldn't be the government's responsibility. "That's what freedom is all about, taking your own risks," Paul said to enthusiastic applause and continued, as his voice trailed off, "this whole idea that you have to prepare to take care of everybody ..."

    "Are you saying that society should just let him die?" Blitzer followed up at which point a number of the audience shouted "yeah!" to loud cheers which were followed by  by laughter.

    During the third Republican presidential debate  night, on September 22, 2011, a video was shown that featured a gay soldier asking the candidates a question about the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. The video showed Stephen Hill who stated he had to "lie about who I was in 2010 when I was deployed to Iraq because I'm a gay soldier, and I didn't want to lose my job." Hill then asked "Do you intend to circumvent the progress that's been made for gay and lesbian soldiers in the military?"

        After the video was shown, some members of the audience were heard booing loudly and not one of the GOP hopefuls thanked Hill for his military service. Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, who has never served a day in the military, replied that he would reinstate the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy because, in the military, "sex is not an issue. It should not be an issue. Leave it alone. Keep it to yourself whether you are heterosexual or homosexual. I think it tries to inject social policy into the military," he said. "And the military's job is to do one thing: to defend our country," as the GOP audience applauded.

       The philosopher John Rawls wrote extensively about the concept of justice, and he emphasized the importance of "public reason" - discussion, debate and dialogue - in a democratic society. Rawls contended that public reason required deliberation within a framework of shared values that were based upon sincerely held convictions about basic rights, liberties, opportunities and claims of the general  good. In many respects, Rawls' views about the importance of public discourse as a civic exercise echoed those of John Dewey. In The Public And Its Problems, Dewey drew a sharp distinction between an informed public opinion, based upon "effective and organized inquiry, and "Opinion casually...under the direction of those who have something at stake in having a lie believed... The more who share it, the more injurious its influence."

        The three Republican presidential debates showed that the candidates and the audiences shared  a commitment to a serious of strongly held beliefs about the value and importance of the death penalty, about the singular responsibility of individuals as opposed to society to provide for  their own medical care irrespective of their economic situation, and about whether one's sexual orientation should be a disqualification for public service. Each of these "lies" debased the public discourse and subverted the role of public reason in the public square. 

        Equally disturbing, the candidates and the audiences in three presidential debates were unable to move beyond an anecdotal political narrative that focused solely upon personal concerns. That narrative denied the existence of legitimate needs that extended beyond the self and which required the assistance and intervention of government, as the agent of the community, to address those needs.

        The three debates provided viewers with a glimpse into a moral universe in which acts and ethical obligations are considered only in relation to the personal consequences that may result without any comprehension that every act in the public arena has consequences to others. Sadly, the GOP is now trapped in a the pre-conventional morality in which unthinking obedience and self-interest rein unchecked and unchallenged. In that moral universe, there is little room for empathy or compassion and Kant's categorical imperative must, inevitably, be rejected as so much socialist tripe.
 
                
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