Better Call Saul

Presentations:: Lily, David, Sydney,

Monday: Zoe, Zoey, and Reese

For Monday: Miller, ch. 1-5.

Isolationism 1940-41

On 1/23/1941, Charles Lindbergh testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, calling for a negotiated peace with Hitler.  He had this exchange with Rep. Luther Johnson (D-TX):

Madison did stress the importance of interest as a political motive.  From Federalist 10:

But the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society.

But Madison thought that there was much more to human nature.  From Federalist 55:

As there is a degree of depravity in mankind which requires a certain degree of circumspection and distrust, so there are other qualities in human nature which justify a certain portion of esteem and confidence. Republican government presupposes the existence of these qualities in a higher degree than any other form.

Abraham Lincoln, Community Organizer

Qualities of an organizer

• Curiosity
• Irreverence
• Imagination
• A sense of humor
• A bit of a blurred vision of a better world
• An organized personality
• A well-integrated political schizoid
• Ego
• A free and open mind, and political relativity
• Communication

Obama Commandments for Effective Organizing

1. You are an Organizer.
2. Things are always great. Be positive.
3. Think with your head: be driven by your heart.
4. People will come to the campaign for Barack. They stay because of you.
5. Empower yourself and others will be empowered.
6. Respect your community and your coworkers.
7. NEVER lie.
8. The phone is your greatest tool and your best friend.
9. If it is not written down, it does not exist.
10. Campaigns are won when goals are met.
11. Have goals. Be accountable. Make others accountable.
12. “Some” is not a number, “soon” is not a time. Only hard numbers count.
13. Keep it simple.
14. Listen actively.
15. Time is the most valuable resource you have. Don’t waste it.
16. Have a back-up plan for every situation.
17. Look and act professional. You are Barack’s surrogate in your community.
18. When you’re not working, remember that the other side is.

TACTICS

• RULE 1: Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.
• RULE 2: Never go outside the experience of your people
• RULE 3: Whenever possible, go outside the experience of the enemy
• RULE 4: Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules.
• RULE 5: Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.
• RULE 6: A good tactic is one that your people enjoy. (compare with p. 139-41)
• RULE 7: A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.
• RULE 8: Keep the pressure on, with different tactics and actions, and utilize all events of the period for your purpose.
• RULE 9: The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.
• RULE 10: The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.
• RULE 11: If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counterside.
• RULE 12: The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.
• RULE 13. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.

TIME IN JAIL" (156-158)

Civil Disobedience and Protest

Presentations today:  Faith, Lauren, Kaylin, Shannon

Presentations Wed: Lily, David, Sydney

For Wed: Alinsky 125-164

Student hour today: 1:20-2:30

From Birmingham Jail:

YOU express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, it is rather strange and paradoxical to find us consciously breaking laws. One may well ask, "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer is found in the fact that there are two types of laws: there are just laws, and there are unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "An unjust law is no law at all."

Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine when a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law, or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas, an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. To use the words of Martin Buber, the great Jewish philosopher, segregation substitutes an "I - it" relationship for the "I - thou" relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. So segregation is not only politically, economically, and sociologically unsound, but it is morally wrong and sinful. Paul Tillich has said that sin is separation. Isn't segregation an existential expression of man's tragic separation, an expression of his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness? So I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court because it is morally right, and I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances because they are morally wrong.

Let us turn to a more concrete example of just and unjust laws. An unjust law is a code that a majority inflicts on a minority that is not binding on itself. This is difference made legal. On the other hand, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow, and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal.

Let me give another explanation. An unjust law is a code inflicted upon a minority which that minority had no part in enacting or creating because it did not have the unhampered right to vote. Who can say that the legislature of Alabama which set up the segregation laws was democratically elected? Throughout the state of Alabama all types of conniving methods are used to prevent Negroes from becoming registered voters, and there are some counties without a single Negro registered to vote, despite the fact that the Negroes constitute a majority of the population. Can any law set up in such a state be considered democratically structured?

These are just a few examples of unjust and just laws. There are some instances when a law is just on its face and unjust in its application. For instance, I was arrested Friday on a charge of parading without a permit. Now, there is nothing wrong with an ordinance which requires a permit for a parade, but when the ordinance is used to preserve segregation and to deny citizens  the First Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and peaceful protest, then it becomes unjust.

Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was seen sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar because a higher moral law was involved. It was practiced superbly by the early Christians, who were willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks before submitting to certain unjust laws of the Roman Empire. To a degree, academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil disobedience.

We can never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was "legal" and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was "illegal." It was "illegal" to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler's Germany. But I am sure that if I had lived in Germany during that time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers even though it was illegal. If I lived in a Communist country today where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I believe I would openly advocate disobeying these anti-religious laws.

 

The epigraph page

Yes, Hillary Rodham did write her senior thesis on Alinsky.  Here it is.

Alinsky and the Capone Gang

"Rules of Ethics" according to Alinsky:

• One's concern with the ethics of means and ends varies inversely with one's personal interest in the issue (26). [Also see Madison: As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed. As long as the connection subsists between his reason and his self-love, his opinions and his passions will have a reciprocal influence on each other; and the former will be objects to which the latter will attach themselves.]
• The judgment of the ethics of means is dependent upon the political position of those sitting in judgment (26)
• "The Declaration of Independence, as a declaration of war, had to be what it was, a 100 percent statement of the justice of the cause of the colonists and a 100 percent denunciation of the role of the British government as evil and unjust" (28)
• In war the ends justify almost any means (29)  --but see the Thomas More clip for a different view.
• Judgment must be made in the context of the times in which the action occurred and not from any other chronological vantage point (30).
• Concern with ethics increases with the number of means available and vice versa (32).
• The less important the end to be desired, the more one can afford to engage in ethical evaluations of means (34).
• Generally success or failure is a mighty determinant of ethics.(34)
• Morality of a means depends upon whether the means is being employed at a time of imminent defeat or imminent victory (34).
• Any effective means is automatically judged by the opposition as being unethical (35).
• You do what you can with what you have and clothe it with moral garments." (36)A ll great leaders, including Churchill, Gandhi, Lincoln, and Jefferson, always invoked "moral principles" to cover naked self-interest in the clothing of `freedom,'`equality of mankind,' `a law higher than man-made law,' and so on. This even held under circumstances of national crises when it was universally assumed that the end justified any means. All effective actions require the passport of morality."  [Compare and contrast, however, with the Declaration.]
• Goals must be phrased in general terms like "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity," "Of the Common Welfare," "Pursuit of Happiness," or "Bread and Peace." (45)
• Qualities of an organizer -- See "The Education of an Organizer"

On p. 54:

In all the reasoning found in The Federalist Papers, no point is so central and agreed upon as "Rich and poor alike are prone to act upon impulse rather than pure reason and to narrow conceptions of self-interest . . ." To question the force of self-interest that pervades all areas of political life is to refuse to see man as he is, to see him only as we would like him to be.

Search the Federalist Papers.  There is no such passage. Alinsky either made it up or mistook his own paraphrase for a direct quotation.

Moral:  when quoting a text, go to the original!!

Madison did stress the importance of interest as a political motive.  From Federalist 10:

• As  long as the connection subsists between his reason and his  self-love, his opinions and his passions will have a reciprocal  influence on each other; and the former will be objects to which  the latter will attach themselves. 
• But  the most common and durable source of factions has been the various  and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who  are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society.

But Madison thought that there was much more to human nature.  From Federalist 55:

As there is a degree of depravity in mankind which requires a certain degree of circumspection and distrust, so there are other qualities in human nature which justify a certain portion of esteem and confidence. Republican government presupposes the existence of these qualities in a higher degree than any other form.

Abraham Lincoln, Community Organizer

Qualities of an organizer

• Curiosity
• Irreverence
• Imagination
• A sense of humor
• A bit of a blurred vision of a better world
• An organized personality
• A well-integrated political schizoid
• Ego
• A free and open mind, and political relativity
• Communication

Obama Commandments for Effective Organizing

1. You are an Organizer.
2. Things are always great. Be positive.
3. Think with your head: be driven by your heart.
4. People will come to the campaign for Barack. They stay because of you.
5. Empower yourself and others will be empowered.
6. Respect your community and your coworkers.
7. NEVER lie.
8. The phone is your greatest tool and your best friend.
9. If it is not written down, it does not exist.
10. Campaigns are won when goals are met.
11. Have goals. Be accountable. Make others accountable.
12. “Some” is not a number, “soon” is not a time. Only hard numbers count.
13. Keep it simple.
14. Listen actively.
15. Time is the most valuable resource you have. Don’t waste it.
16. Have a back-up plan for every situation.
17. Look and act professional. You are Barack’s surrogate in your community.
18. When you’re not working, remember that the other side is.

Parties and Elections II

For Monday, King, Birmingham Jail; Alinsky xiii-97

Presentations today: Ethan, Jules, Marco, Ved

Presentations Monday:  Faith, Lauren, Kaylin, Shannon

Presentations a week from today: Lily

Turnout: VAP and VEP

• Historical
• Demographics
• Youth:  WHY IS TURNOUT LOWER AMONG YOUNGER PEOPLE?
• By state

Direct Democracy: Prop 50

Districts 

• A gerrymandering game
• Democratic gerrymander in Illinois
• Republican gerrymander in NC

Explaining Elections:  Geography and the Electoral College 

Explaining Elections:  Demographics

• Gender and Marital Status
• The Diploma Divide
• Black vote and Malcolm X

Latino Voting

• Diversity of Latinos and Religion
• Latinos and issues (see table 5, p. 7)
• Immigration and border security
• "Latinx"
• 
  

Explaining Elections:  Economics

Campaigns

• Spending
• Commercials!

Parties and Elections I

For Wednesday, the Madrid reading at Canvas.

Presentations today: Adeline,  Anay, Kurt, Sarah.

Wed presentations:  Ethan, Jules, Marco, Ved

Stylistic points:

• Use proper endnote format.
• Avoid dropped quotations
• Do not jam superscripts together. To cite multiple sources for a sentence, put them in the same note and separate them with semicolons.
• Use shortened form for subsequent citations.

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US parties are networks with four dimensions:

• PIE
• PO
• PIG
• POG

Party in the Electorate (PIE)

• Last time: A cinematic map of presidential voting
• Historical party affiliation  (Party registration and party affiliation or identification are not the same thing)
• Recent trends
• Party coalitions

AND THE ROLE OF RELIGION

Party in Government (PIG)

• Party Divisions in the House
• Party Divisions in the Senate
• State Government Control 

Party Organization (PO)

Party Outside Groups (POG)

• Outside spending
• Partisan think tanks, media sites

Though distinct, the levels have deep connections:  the PIE chooses the PIG.

Current times are very unusual in the degree to which POTUS has nationalized his party.  Dems are "leaderless," but out-parties usually are!

Malcolm X on the stakes of political mobiliztion

The political philosophy of black nationalism means that the black man should control the politics and the politicians in his own community; no more. The black man in the black community has to be re-educated into the science of politics so he will know what politics is supposed to bring him in return. Don't be throwing out any ballots. A ballot is like a bullet. You don't throw your ballots until you see a target, and if that target is not within your reach, keep your ballot in your pocket.

Interest Groups and Parties

Class presentations:  3-4 per class through Nov 19. Need three volunteers for Monday. 

Next time:  Malcolm X, “The Ballot or the Bullet”  http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/speeches/malcolm_x_ballot.html

Next week, student hours are Mon and Tue 1-2 and via Zoom by appointment.

Political Money

• Official federal contribution limits
• Super PACs -- Trevor Potter explains
• Dark Money

Jonathan Rauch, "Political Realism: How Hacks, Machines, Big Money, and Back-Room Deals Can Strengthen American Democracy,"  Brookings, May 2015.

• Transactional politics in action: the Compromise of 1790

Party in the Electorate (PIE)

• A cinematic map of presidential voting
• Historical party affiliation  (Party registration and party affiliation or identification are not the same thing)
• Recent trends
• Party coalitions

Party in Government (PIG)

• Party Divisions in the House
• Party Divisions in the Senate
• State Government Control 

Party Organization (PO)

Party Outside Groups (POG)

• Outside spending
• Partisan think tanks, media sites

Interest Groups

 Foreign influence:  Ontario Reagan ad and Super Bowl ad.

CMCers in the business

For Wednesday, Rauch: https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/political-realism-rauch2.pdf 

Student hour today: 1:30-2:30

Tocqueville (Lawrence/Mayer ed., p. 518):

It often happens in democratic countries that many men who have the desire or directed toward that light, and those wandering spirits who had long sought each other the need to associate cannot do it, because all being very small and lost in the crowd, they do not see each other and do not know where to find each other. Up comes a newspaper that exposes to their view the sentiment or the idea that had been presented to each of them simultaneously but separately. All are immediately in the shadows finally meet each other and unite.

• ECONOMIC INTEREST GROUPS:
• Corporations and other for-profit businesses
• Trade and Professional Associations: The IRS recognized 58,627 business leagues -- e.g., trade and professional associations, -- in FY2024 (p. 30). Examples Many workers require a license or credential.
• Labor Unions: BLS data

Non-economic Interest Groups (Tocqueville on associational life)

WHY THE GUN LOBBY HAS POWER (NOT JUST THE CAMPAIGN MONEY)

VIDEO ON INTEREST GROUPS AND THE LOBBYING INDUSTRY

Data and Graphics from Bruce Mehlman (P `25)

Inside game 

• In-house lobbying and contract lobbying
• Access -- the real value of campaign money
• The key:  knowing your stuff, making a case on the merits

Outside game

• Advertising
• Ballot measures
• Litigation and amicus briefs (where to find them)

For next time;

Political Money

• Official federal contribution limits
• Super PACs
• Other Outside Spending and Dark Money

Civil Liberties

Research tips

The Equal Protection Clause does not grant voting rights to aliens because the Supreme Court distinguishes political rights, which belong to citizens, and other legal protections that apply to all "persons". The government reserves the right to participate in democratic processes for citizens, and courts generally only require a rational basis for the distinction, not strict scrutiny. 

For Monday:

• Tocqueville, pp. 174-179, 189-203,  513-524.
• Watch https://youtu.be/FZVfTCBUkgM?si=eeSQkD1nL-6IlG1Y 

Brown v. Board of Education and originalism. Michael McConnell (P  `06):  "Large majorities of both houses of Congress, and even larger majorities of supporters of the Fourteenth Amendment, concluded that it forbade dejure segregation of public schools. That fact puts to rest the notion that the Supreme Court had to disregard the original meaning of the Amendment in order to "do the right thing" in Brown."

Voting Rights and War

• Women's suffrage, World War I, and 19th Amendment
• Indian Citizenship Act
• The 26th Amendment and Vietnam

Inside door of the Supreme Court:

Thirty-seven percent tell Gallup that God created humans 10,000 years ago.

International comparisons

Edwards v Aguillard  -- background starting at 7:20

Amicus briefs

Decision and opinions

Edwards v. Aguillard oral argument (start around 26:00)

From Topkis's comments -- an example of the value of slow reading:

Now, this bill was of course drafted by a theologian, or somebody versed in apologetics.

There's an amusing bit of evidence on that subject in the very language of the bill.

The bill keeps using... the Act keeps using the term "evidences" in the plural.

We lawyers never speak of "evidences" in the plural. We speak of "evidence", the singular.

And I got nagged by it, and I looked it up the other day.

And of course the only dictionary reference to "evidences" is to Christian apologetics: the evidences for Christianity. This is a matter of theological disputation.

Tocqueville (p. 267): "Nothing could be more obscure and out of reach of the common man than a law founded on precedent…. A French lawyer is just a man of learning, but an English or an American one is somewhat like the Egyptian priests, being, as they were, the only interpreters of an occult science."

In this case, Lemon v. Kurtzman

• must have a secular purpose
• must have a principal or primary effect that does not advance or inhibit religion, and 
• cannot foster an excessive government entanglement with religion.

Bye, bye, Lemon v Kurtzman

The Due Process Clause and Selective Incorporation (p.93-94)

The Bill of Rights

Amendment I  Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.  

• Free speech, libel. and slander: keep in mind the difference between civil and criminal cases.

Amendment II  A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. (Rep. Chip Roy.)

 Amendment III No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Amendment IV The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

• The Exclusionary Rule (p. 107) and A 1971 movie that suggests public attitudes during the Nixon era.

Amendment V No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

• News you can use: DEALING WITH LAW ENFORCEMENT

Amendment VI In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

• Mike Ehrmantraut asserts his right to a lawyer.

Amendment VII In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

Amendment VIII Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Amendment IX The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

• Privacy and test cases
• Roe and Dobbs

Amendment X The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.