My American Values: The Empty Pot

I begin the My American Values series with a content discussion of our U.S. Constitution and the social understandings of such contents. In this post, I will be concentrating on what our Constitution doesn’t say, and comparing that to other constitutions around the world.

Comparison to other constitutions

As a general note, our constitution is one of the oldest constitutions still in use. As time has gone on, modern constitutions have grown longer, often adding more rights for the people and more detailed powers and limitations of the government. For example, the U.S. Constitution, including amendments, is only about 7,229 words long. In contrast, India’s constitution, in PDF, is 471 pages long, and its table of contents alone contains 6,231 words. While more specificity allows for the document to produce governments more faithful to the text, it also decreases the flexibility and legibility of the document. This is a classic trade-off.

While it is certainly possible to have a more detailed constitution without having the features noted below, I would like to point out some interesting inclusions in foreign constitutions:

·         Egypt’s constitution defines Islam as the state religion.

·         France’s constitution defines French as the official language.

·         Ireland’s constitution holds the ‘family’ as the fundamental unit of society, and describes different rights for mothers.

·         North Korea’s constitution has an economic ideology: socialism.

·         The German constitution refers to a ‘German ethnic origin’.

Our constitution denotes not official language or religion and contains no discussions of the family or an American ethnicity. What about economic ideology? Well, that requires a bit more discussion. Justice Holmes, in dissent in Lockner v. New York (1905), stated the following, ‎"[The] constitution is not intended to embody a particular economic theory, whether of paternalism and the organic relation of the citizen to the State or of laissez faire. It is made for people of fundamentally differing views, and the accident of our finding certain opinions natural and familiar or novel and even shocking ought not to conclude our judgment upon the question whether statutes embodying them conflict with the Constitution of the United States." (Noting of course that this is a dissent to a long-overturned case, doctrine, and line of thinking in U.S. Constitutional analysis and interpretation—meaning it’s not binding law, but it can be persuasive.)

There is no language in the Constitution which even implies a specific economic theory. While the constitution does imply a right to exclusive individual property (as does the common law), it also includes the Interstate Commerce Clause (and to a lesser extent the Equal Protection clause) which imply governmental abilities to regulate commerce. Moreover, note that Art. I, Sec. 8 and Amend. XVI allow the Federal government to tax citizens’ income and general taxes on goods and services. All of these economic statements add up to say that there are times when the government can interact with the economy. That’s it. There isn’t enough in the document to implicate a specific economic ideal. At most it runs antithetical to extreme communism as well as extreme libertarianism, while allowing almost anything in between. 

Beyond what has been discussed above, our constitution also does not offer constitutional protections from non-state actors. It sets up no affirmative duties of parents, no prohibition against discrimination by private organizations, no protections of culture, etc. But should our Constitution speak to such important human issues as family, culture, language or religion?

What is done by not doing

            What this silence on such issues allows is the natural change, development and movement of humanity to occur without need to question the fundamental document. In the long course of human history, what we now call France, whose constitution hold French as the official language, has been occupied by dozens of languages. In Egypt, like many other countries, their constitution specifies Islam as the state religion. However, only a brief investigation of Egyptian history shows that at various times the area was dominated by Christianity and various forms of polytheistic worship. Having such momentary trends artificially codified attempts to freeze in time a snapshot of culture—an ever-evolving, elusive concept which cannot characterized as stagnant. The U.S. Constitution makes no claims of culture, and simply leaves such a discussion to be had elsewhere.

           

Economies change, languages change, religions change and ethnic compositions change. And when they do, constitutions which designate such elements will become anachronistic. They are simply not equipped for the natural and dynamic movements and changes of the human condition.

When the U.S. was founded the population (which was allowed a voice in such matters) was predominantly Anglo in ethnicity, Protestant Christian in religion, English by language, and agrarian by economy. A mere 300 years after that and the population could well be Hispanic by ethnicity, Catholic Christian in religion, Spanish by language, and socialist by economy. Or perhaps too mixed to characterize by ethnicity, no religion as religion, Spanish by language, free-market by economy and having no discernable family structure of which to speak. In either scenario, this would still be America. The Constitution would still be relevant.

The U.S. is often called a ‘melting pot’. This means that people of different colors and creeds come here and mix and mingle peaceably. In this analogy the people are the ingredients, the stuff which is being melted together. What, then, is the state? In such an analogy what symbolizes the fundamental structures on which the country rests? It’s the pot—the empty pot in which any people can be placed. No matter what cultures or people are placed in the pot, the label on the outside of the pot says the same thing: the United States of America.  

Restructuring Two UN Bodies

This post is an excerpt from a paper I have written this semester. The argument is that the structure of the United Nations does violence on groups with little influence among nations. Presently, for a small population to obtain a ceremonial international show of support, the people would have to lobby and convince a majority of the 193 nations of the General Assembly to support their cause. For any group, this is a daunting task. Moreover, to achieve a binding international resolution in their favor, such a group would specifically have to lobby the P-5 and four non-permanent members of the Security Council. Even a rather large and strong nation is often unable to resist the economic and military power of those nations which compose the Security Council.

Without any actual protection of minority rights, the United Nations forces the exploited and downtrodden to rely on the sense of justice of the Security Council, often the very nations which exploited and tread on such groups in the first place. From the point of view of many former and currently colonized people, this structure makes the perpetrators of the worst international offenses the judges and juries of the international system. The structure of the Security Council and General Assembly of the United Nations makes it clear that not all sovereignties are created equal. By giving the P-5 veto power, this structure exacerbates and formalizes the inequalities of power among nations. Indeed one member of the P-5 is at least as powerful as half of the 193 member nations. This structure can hardly be considered democratic or just.

While it is important to maintain the General Assembly as the main body of the U.N., there is also need for the Security Council to make quick decisions. One possible reform would be to allow the General Assembly to have the ability to pass binding resolutions. Then the Security Council and the General Assembly could be able to check the other in some way.

Nonetheless, the Security Council simply must be restructured. The new Security Council should be elected by the General Assembly (as are present non-permanent members of the Security Council) for two-year non-consecutive terms. The electoral system to be used will be Ranked Pairs (a form of Condorcet voting where each voter ranks the candidates in order of preference), which will ensure that the most politically agreeable candidates are seated on the Security Council. Moreover, the Security Council will be increased to 20 and there will be no permanent members.

As the U.N.’s goals, inter alia, are global peace and self-determination, granting sovereignty to a people who wish for independence should require a lower threshold than the approval of military intervention. Thus, while most policy votes will require a simple majority of the General Assembly, approving armed conflict will require 2/3 of the General Assembly and the support of the Security Council. Conversely, granting sovereignty and peacekeeping missions will only require the support of 1/3 of the General Assembly. These changes could eliminate the institutionalized dominance of the P-5 and the decreased threshold for sovereignty will further allow colonized peoples to make their own decisions. This comes from the value of self-determination and the goal of allowing all people to have a real opportunity to hold the key to their own future.

Humanitarian Aid as a Strategic Obligation to the People of Libya

This is another short post gearing up for the APDS Symposium. You can read this one here. Thanks.

Over the past few days the world has witnessed horrible images and stories of the death of former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi at the hands of Libyan rebels. I will not describe this below. The biggest fear now must be that this act of lawlessness may be foreshadowing the future chaos to come. The world cannot afford this to happen.

Protests against the regime—and the regime’s reaction—began months before military intervention. However, Gaddafi’s fall was likely accelerated by that military intervention by US-led NATO forces, best characterized by strategic bombings. Now, the oil-rich nation with no recent history of meaningful political process or participation is left with a power vacuum and infrastructure reconstruction. In order to prevent the nation from falling into the hands of another dictator like Gaddafi—and perhaps worse—NATO and the US have an obligation to provide humanitarian aid to the people it had just bombed.

After bombing began, President Obama citied humanitarian concerns for intervening in Libya. He stated a desire to protect the protestors from the brutal hands of a dictator known to have a low tolerance for political dissent. While the US domestic political climate will not tolerate another Iraq—US troops occupying and rebuilding a foreign nation on the ground—our reasons for entering will be compromised if our foreign policy ignores Libya. The state may fall into the hands of a new regime looking to capitalize on the nation’s oil wealth and continue to ignore  the concerns of the Libyan people.

As such, I call on the US and NATO to provide humanitarian relief in the form of medicine, food, water, and other basic supplies much like the Chinese have begun doing. The US should also emphasize other programs such as financial and technical support for rule of law initiates, security, civil society, and governance programs. In short, we need to win “hearts and minds” of the Libyan people.

While this is partly a moral obligation, it is also a strategic obligation. In the coming months and years the people of Libya will be faced with choices—such as their views of the US and whether they wish to be an ally in the fight to bring democracy to the Middle East and North Africa. How we treat the people of Libya—indeed, our public diplomacy in that nation—may determine foreign policy choices of the next Libyan government. While it cannot be said that the future of Libya hinges on US public diplomacy and humanitarian aid, we can play an important role in the outcome of Libya, especial at this most critical hour. Whether the US is seen as liberators or evil-doers, it is imperative that we show the people of Libya that in the end we did not care about killing Gaddafi or access to oil, but that we cared about helping the people of Libya.

The Deliberate Use of Art Diplomacy

It's a very short post, but I wrote a quick entry drumming up support for the upcoming APDS Symposium. You can read it here. Thanks.

Later this month our Symposium, Building Bridges: The Tools of Public Diplomacy, will feature a panel discussing art as a tool of public diplomacy. It must be noted, however, that such public diplomacy must be used carefully.
        The main goal of art as a tool of public diplomacy is to create a common experience among those of different cultures. Art diplomacy doesn’t often have the feel of an imposition of a policy, and often its lack of an explicit governmental message is its selling point. Such a tool can be used to express similar values in those cultures or even as a simple piece over which to have a conversation.
        However, what art we transmit as ‘American’ must be deliberate. If we as a nation transmit caricatures of our culture abroad, such images will be viewed as accurate. Of all the art that originates from America much of it creates caricatures of American life, often for the goal of parody or comedy. However, this may be lost on international consumers who experience such art decontextualized. Sometimes such art portrays Americans as rich, wasteful, spoiled, racist, xenophobic, lazy, or any other negative characteristic.
        What, then, do we do? Should the U.S. government, through media such as Al Hurra, Voice of America, etc., show the world all our art, and hope they draw the conclusions we support? Or, should the government regulate what American art the world sees, and thus censor and control our own image? If the government picks and chooses, should we export high art or popular art?
        In the end, ethical public diplomacy requires us to be honest in our message and reciprocal in our tactics. Art must be no different. Hopefully on October 27th our questions will be answered.

My American Values: Introduction

I would like to introduce my new blog series: My American Values. In public diplomacy we often discuss ‘American values’ as a national strength and among our nation’s greatest exports. However, I have occasioned surprisingly little ink spilled on the topic. If such a concept is so important, is it not worth critical investigation, or at least description?

So, for each post I will identify a value of mine from my American perspective. The point of the title and series is not to suggest that these values are exclusive. On the contrary, I think these values are transcendental, and as such deserve to be espoused upon. I use the term ‘American’ to simply denote from where it is that I have received such values. Could these blogs be considered an act of public diplomacy? Probably not, but the explanation and understanding of the American point of view is essential to U.S. public diplomacy.

America is said to be a nation of laws, not men. So, I will generally base such claims of values in legal doctrine and the aspirational language of the founding documents. I generally won’t be arguing history, past practice, foreign influences, pragmatism, culture or partisan stances. While all of these topics are very important to the formation of the values of a people, such topics will merely complicate and the analysis beyond my modest abilities.

For example, while explicit legal American values currently reject racism, American history (and present reality) is marred with and, at times, driven by, racism. But just because this is our reality and our past does not mean that such things are our values. The relationship between an individual’s values and actions are complicated, not to mention that same relationship regarding of a whole nation. Lastly, I don’t propose to identify every American value, just ones which I personally identify and the ones I can tackle in such a format.

I hope you all enjoy reading, and feel free to suggest topics and critiques in the comments below. Keep an eye out for the first post of the series!

List of Series Posts:

• The Empty Pot
• True Mobility