David Newhoff

In late January, Justice Scalia drew the ire of Democrats and civil libertarians when he said the following about the flood of soft-money, political ads flowing from the 2010 decision in Citizens United v FEC:  “I don’t care who is doing the speech — the more the merrier.  People are not stupid.  If they don’t like it, they’ll shut it off.”  I wish I could agree with the justice that people are not stupid, but I do agree that it isn’t the Constitution’s job to make us smart.

I’m the kind of pedant who read the transcripts of this case shortly after the ruling was made; and I haven’t been able to get the recent notion out of my head that there’s a connection between reaction to that decision and the anti-SOPA/PIPA campaign. I’ll do my best to explain.

Citizens United intrigues me because it raises a paradox in that everyone who fears the influence of the ruling likely believes it is someone else who is susceptible to the wiles of PAC spending. Presumably, we each think we’re well-informed enough to see through the charade and that it is only other folks who will be manipulated by corporate interests. Of course, those other folks probably think the same thing, hence the paradox.  If we were all truly well-informed, Scalia would be right, and the landmark ruling should be a pyrrhic victory for the manipulators.  They could spend themselves into oblivion and not move the agenda in the slightest.

To the contrary, we know that PAC and SuperPAC spending has tremendous influence, so at least some of us are indeed unable to see the puppet strings in the process, which raises this question:  If reliable data is the weapon against corporate influence, what if that “reliable data” is being disseminated by manipulating corporations in the first place?  And that, my friends, is what the Internet enables in mass quantity, which brings me to the anti-SOPA campaign.

Both Citizens United and the anti-piracy battle raise First Amendment issues, albeit from very different perspectives.  Scalia argued that a ruling in favor of the FEC in this case would have a chilling effect on free speech; and web industry lawyers argued the very same thing about certain sections of SOPA.  While it would take a very long article to compare and contrast the First Amendment particulars of these two topics, an underlying principle that both appear to share is that the best way to protect free speech is to have more speech.  If we look at the state of news and information in the digital age, I am personally dubious that more has made the information better.  As such, I find myself wondering, does more makes us freer, or does more actually mean more opportunity for more manipulators not only to tell us what to think, but to make us believe we thought of it ourselves?

The protest of January 18th has been hailed as a landmark event in direct democracy, but I personally believe it was exactly the opposite. If 10+ million people read either bill plus analyses from each side before making their decisions, I’ll eat my hat and a cardigan for dessert.  On the other hand, as I indicated in my last article in The Hill, if people were rallied by a manipulating industry to stop legislation in it’s tracks, then that is merely an illusion of democracy more insidious than all the lobbying and advertising in the world.  Specifically, it is a manifestation of the very thing we fear about Citizens United.

Behind the cacophony of aggregate and mutant hype that led up to blackout day was a rhythm section pumping out a steady beat of blogs, emails, legal opinions, and claims that came from organizations like the The Electronic Frontier Foundation, The Sunlight Foundation, Change Congress, Free Press, and several others.  All of these organizations are 501(c)(3)PACs that receive substantial support from tech and web companies like Google.  That in itself is not a smoking gun.  In fact, some of these organizations do some important, grass-roots work on civil liberties issues predicated on ideas that just so happen to dovetail with the business objectives of their backers.  That is why PACs are effective — they often stand for principles we hold dear.

The point is that this protest so many believe was about the people taking charge was, in fact, more industry-backed and coordinated than its joiners probably realized. And my fear is that we just taught the next manipulating industry how cheaply and easily they could blast some other piece of legislation. Hence, before we shout too loud against the influence of Citizens United, we should learn to recognize a river of soft-money when we’re swimming in it.

So, last week dealt a few blows to supporters of new anti-piracy legislation, and today, websites around the world, including some biggies, have gone dark in protest of anti-piracy legislation.  The guts of SOPA have been eviscerated to the point that Google and others can still profit from piracy; and many legislators and the White House show signs of bowing to public pressure as the contentious election year is upon us and Silicon Valley’s fear campaign has worked its magic — especially on my fellow democrats and artists.  If SOPA and PIPA fail, or fail to pass in substantive form, it will indeed be a shame for American content creators and consumers, but the real shame is what this process reveals about the stagnation of governance in general. (read more)

Since the State of Missouri decided to take up this hogwash this week, I thought I’d re-post an old piece of mine on the subject.

There is nothing intelligent about the so-called Theory of Intelligent Design.  The fact that this country continues to squabble over evolution in the early 21^st century is embarrassing, but given our fascination with running baboons for public office, it shouldn’t be surprising.  While it is tempting (and fun) to simply mock ID proponents, their occasional progress through state legislatures is terrifyingly real, and their strategy is clever.

The Intelligent Design movement veils its religious agenda behind a cloud of scientific and intellectual sounding gibberish in order to play a syllogistic shell-game with America’s students as their suckers.  They gain political ground with claims to asking for fair, open-minded debate; and by avoiding references to God, Genesis, and religion, they sidestep immediate constitutional dismissal and demand to be heard on the grounds of semantics and logic.

In a nutshell, Intelligent Design advocates offer variations on a single theme:  that certain features of the universe and of living systems are so complex that their functioning existence can only be logically explained by an intelligent designer (i.e. a designer who wants these systems and beings to exist, the artist formerly known as God).   The syllogism of Intelligent Design goes like this:

PREM:   Life and the universe are highly complex systems.

PREM:  Highly complex systems in human society are typically created by intelligent purpose.

CONCL:  Therefore, humans and their world must have been purposely created by some higher intelligence.

Any first-year philosophy student can tell you that this logical construct alone does not hold up because the conclusion requires a leap that does not necessarily follow from the premises.  This is not a syllogism but an emotional plea for a magical explanation of the unexplained.  It has exactly the same logical integrity as the following:

PREM:   I found presents under the Christmas tree.

PREM:  I did not see anyone put the presents under the tree.

CONCL:  Therefore, Santa Claus put the presents under the tree.

No matter where you look, you will find an Intelligent Design proponent making essentially this same argument using different examples.  Some will talk about the complexity of the human eye.  It defies logic, they will say, to look at the human eye and question the intelligent purposefulness of its design.  You wouldn’t assume a pocket watch happened by accident, and the eye is far more complex than the watch.  They will repeat this logical circle with examples from other biological, chemical, and physical features of our world until your complex eyes glaze over.

When I.D. advocates proclaim that Darwinian evolution is an unproven theory that deserves no more priority over their alternate theory, they are trading on the fact that both theories are based entirely on observation.  One big difference, though, is that Darwin explains nature by observing nature, while Intelligent Design attempts to explain God by observing mankind.  This is the essential sleight-of-hand at work in the parlor trick currently being played by the I.D. movement.

It is impossible to reproduce evolution in a lab, so it’s tough to prove Darwin by experiment, but we can observe clear evidence of evolution in small systems like viruses, which we know mutate for the purpose of their survival.  All epidemiological strategy is based on this knowledge, and if the I.D. proponents disagree, they should head to church and not the hospital the next time a virus evolves itself into a human pandemic.

Or, do the I.D. folks assert that viruses don’t count, that the creator did not purposely and intelligently design the millions of viruses and is, in fact, not constantly redesigning them into ever more virulent strains?  If the H5N1 virus mutates and kills millions of people of every faith from Christian to atheist, what does the I.D. proponent argue is the creator’s purpose in this action?  Presumably, Pat Robertson will say that the creator meant to wipe out the infidels, but lacks the precision-guided “smart virus” to avoid collateral damage, but what will the so-called rational voices of Intelligent Design offer by way of explanation?

On the subject of small things, what do we do with quantum mechanics?  One of the fundamental, vexing challenges of all physics is the absolute uncertainty of quantum mechanics, which teaches us that predictable outcomes at the subatomic level are nearly impossible and, hence, outcomes on the astronomic scale of the universe are, likewise, a giant crap shoot.  Each of these premises is proven scientific fact and does not in any way depend on Darwin:

PREM:   Our bodies are mostly water.

PREM:  Water cannot exist without oxygen.

PREM:  Oxygen in the universe is produced by supernovae. 

PREM:  A supernova was necessary to produce the life-sustaining earth.

PREM:  Supernovae in space-time are not entirely predictable.

CONCL:  Therefore, either our existence occurred by chance; or the creator has to go through a lot of fuss to get us here.

Based on the scientific evidence of physics, avoiding Darwin altogether, the so-called creator appears to be a deranged idiot – or at least imperfect.  If you hired a contractor to build you a house, and he spent 50 years digging up an entire neighborhood in order to complete a single linen closet, would you consider his methods intelligent and purposeful?  All the biological complexity of life on our planet is contained within a microscopic dot on the map of a volatile, mostly lifeless, universe.  In other words, if there is a creator that actually wants us to be here, it is extremely inefficient – so inefficient, it is hard imagine it has the intelligence to design our complex world.

So, the I.D. argument is confined, in this case, to one of three choices:  1) The creator created us but not the entire universe (meaning the creator is finite and some astrophysics is just plain wrong); 2) The creator is a deranged idiot; 3) The creator is infinite and its methods are incomparable to those of man (i.e. God moves in mysterious ways).

Of these, the strongest argument is the second — that the creator is a deranged idiot.  It actually unifies scientific evidence and Intelligent Design, except for the intelligent part. It asserts that a creator is responsible for our existence, but not that there is no discernible method to the creator’s madness (i.e. that we serve no purpose).

The first argument is viable for the I.D. crowd, too – that the creator is a component of, not master of, the entire universe, but did create the earth and life upon it.  This still begs the question why the creator wants us here, but we’ll get back to that.

The third argument – the creator’s ways are beyond the scope and comprehension of man — is where the case for Intelligent Design circles back on itself and collapses altogether.  This is because the entire case for Intelligent Design is based upon the argument that our human, mortal experience must logically be applied retroactively to a creator.  Technically, it either strips the creator of absolute power, or it simply undermines the following I.D. argument:

PREM:  Humans design complex systems and objects in order to serve a purpose.

PREM:  Life itself is a combination of complex systems and objects.

PREM:  All complex systems and objects must be purposely designed.

CONCL:  Therefore, a creator must have designed life on purpose.

But if the contrast between the scale of our volatile universe and our miniscule existence within it leads one to the “God moves in mysterious ways,” defense, then the foundation of the Intelligent Design argument disintegrates in its assumption that we can understand the creator’s purposes by comparing them to our own mortal aims.  In other words, the Intelligent Design argument cannot exist without the presumption that we serve some purpose for the creator, and this purpose cannot be proven through scientific method.  All human belief in a purpose and the endeavor to understand that purpose is what we call religion. Hence, no matter how the words are parsed, Intelligent Design cannot be rationally divorced from the notion of faith, which makes it an unscientific “theory” of creation.

PREM:  Intelligent Design presumes human life serves the purposes of a creator.

PREM:  We cannot know our purpose through the scientific method.

PREM:  The purpose of human existence is a matter of faith.

PREM:  Intelligent Design is based on faith

PREM:  Faith is the core of religion.

PREM:  Intelligent Design is religion.

PREM:  It is unconstitutional to teach religion in American public schools.

CONCL:  It is unconstitutional to teach Intelligent Design in American public schools.

I’m an atheist from a Jewish family and have celebrated Christmas my entire life.  In my childhood home, Hannukkah meant watching my mother search for our menorah for eight days while the Christmas tree gleamed in the living room and I did what any kid would do — eagerly anticipate what loot may appear beneath those sparkling boughs.  I don’t remember taking Santa Claus literally for very long and can say for sure that I was well-grounded in my Godlessness by age eight; so if this self-portrait might offend both Christians and Jews alike, let me use my pariah’s pulpit to suggest that when it comes to wishing good tidings to friends and neighbors, everyone might consider lightening up.  It is, after all, a time to celebrate the light for reasons that transcend any modern religion.

In particular, American Christmas is a hodge-podge of pagan, secular, and religious conventions spanning the history of western civilization from Stonehenge to Macy’s.  So, those who would lecture that “Jesus is the reason for the season,” are as inaccurate as they are militant.  The season is as old as the life-sustaining Earth; and there are many pagan rituals celebrating light amid the descending darkness, rooted in hope for rebirth as the land literally “dies” into each new Winter.  As Europe was Christianized, various pagan traditions were simply absorbed and codified into Christian doctrine; but many pagan trappings also survived and were ultimately exported to America.

In short, there are plenty of traditional reasons to keep Christmas in one’s own way, with or without Christ or even religion. Caroling (wassailing), for example, comes from an early English tradition akin to adult Trick-or-Treating, in which working-class folks would sing out demands to wealthy households to open their doors and provide food and drink — a practice that often lasted throughout the month of December, frequently becoming violent as well as debauched, thus putting much of the gentry off the idea of “keeping Christmas.”  Scrooge is a character based in this period.  In America, these Bacchanalian rites were chastened and quite purposely shifted to focus on children by early 19th century New Yorkers like Clement Clarke Moore with his famous poem, A Visit from St. Nicholas.

America is experiencing its own long Winter, and we have enough real problems without people getting their holiday stockings in a twist over the kind of seasonal greeting they receive.  Personally, I feel it’s polite to wish a stranger “Happy Holidays,” and by the same token this courtesy applies to greetings from public people and entities.  Acknowledging cultural diversity is not an attack on Christianity or political correctness run amok; it’s just good manners.  On that score, though, if my non-Christian friends receive a jolly “Merry Christmas” from a neighbor, would it kill you to just say, “Thanks?”

Let’s all stay lit this holiday season, but not while driving.  Peace and prosperity!

Yesterday, I was listening to a discussion with Tom Brokaw broadcast on NPR from The Commonwealth Club.  Asked his opinion of news and information in the digital age, the veteran journalist said that he believes the variety of available content is generally a benefit to the world but that the consumer must “apply filters” to the information being delivered.  In other words, the onus is now on us to do the fact-checking we used to rely on relatively few news sources to do on our behalf; and Brokaw suggests the basic questions:  “What is the source? Who are the players?  What is the vested interest?”

We liberals are pretty clear about the manipulative puppet show that calls itself FOX News, but we are simultaneously less critical of information sources that at least appear to share our ideological views.  In general, even if the source is the New York Times or Forbes, we should pay attention to the reality that the non-stop, digital news frenzy results in a lot of self-made journalists sourcing one another.  On Salon.com, for example, Glenn Greenwald will use a word like documented that links to another article that itself provides no hard evidence for its position.  This phenomenon is literally viral, and I believe the educated, progressive class needs to be more critical of every story before feeding the disease, no matter what logo appears in the header.

Recently, a  well-educated, liberal friend of mine posted this piece from Reader Supported News, and it may well be one of the worst examples of insidious, hack journalism I’ve seen yet.  If all you read is the article, you will assume that Senator Franken voted against the National Defense Authorization Act, which is not true and can actually be documented.  The article, dated 12/17, is largely copied and pasted from a floor statement made by Franken prior to the vote (dated on the senator’s site 11/29); but Franken ultimately voted Yea for NDAA on 12/1, when the bill passed 93-7.

In addition to literally taking the senator’s words and post-dating them in order to obfuscate, somebody (we’ll never know who) wrote an introduction to the piece that begins “Yesterday, the Senate passed a bill…” thus creating the illusion that whatever date the news aggregator puts on this nonsense is, in fact, the day after a vote that is now almost a month old.

This same article, whatever its source, appears verbatim on Huffington Post and several other sites with less brand recognition.  Huff Post shows over 6,000 “Likes,” and nearly 3,000 shares — all by well-meaning, likely-liberal citizens who have literally been lied to about this story and simply assumed that it was true.

Citizen journalism can be a powerful tool, but only if those of us still clinging to rational thought in this crazy world are willing to double check before sharing.