Making Real "Values" Judgments

In recent years there has been an explosion of opinion throughout the country about "values" and our democracy. In our current financial distress and with the prospect of a new Supreme Court justice the debate rages ever more furiously about what our pledge of "liberty and justice for all" really means. What some call values turns out to be merely a statement of partisan or religious dogma. And our politics are often driven by arcane testimonials that bear no relationship to either truth or logic.

People say that the loss of jobs to India or wherever is just what happens in a global economy as a result of Big Labor's demands, not bad decisions and big salaries made by corporate leaders. And it is the illegals that get lambasted by pundits and laid-off workers, not the people who hire undocumented laborers to avoid paying a fair wage and benefits in a disturbing, greed-induced race to the bottom for many ordinary Americans.

In one eye-popping documentary trainees in India are instructed to act 'American' in their dress, speech, and general demeanor, as they are groomed for outsourced jobs in India or emigration to the United States. Asked by the instructor who the class thinks are great leaders, one trainee replies, Hitler. The instructor tells him his entire family was wiped out in the Holocaust and that, in any case, glorifying Hitler wouldn't be popular in America. Apparently, copies of Hitler's autobiographical Mien Kampf are flying off the shelves in India, our most favored partner in the export of American jobs.

Meanwhile President Obama is trying to reform a badly distorted system that passes in some quarters for the "free market." Commercial interests and tax mavens who like things the way they are prepare to fight reform with the oddest arguments. How else could an effort to clamp down on tax cheats and corporate tax havens be referred to as the biggest "tax increase" ever? Corporate taxes may be higher on paper here than in other countries, but phony headquarters in the Caymans and elsewhere offset tax obligations to a point where they are only a small fraction of what a 35% tax bracket would suggest. Conservatives tend to ignore the lost revenue that results from concealed earnings; would they support closing loopholes even if the tax rate were reduced?

And as the president prepares to name a successor for retiring Supreme Court Justice Souter, the right wing stands ready to savage anyone suggested. One caller to Washington Journal said the choice should be a White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant male like the founders of the country, people who best understand the Constitution and 'the law.' As outlandish as that may sound, it isn't far from what many on the right espouse. Jeff Sessions, R. from Alabama, whose racist views are well-documented, sits on the Judiciary Committee that will vote on whether or not to send a proposed candidate to the floor of the Senate. And in his best sneering, self-righteous mode, CNN's Lou Dobbs responded to a guest's list of possible female, Hispanic, and scholarly candidates by saying he guessed Supreme Court choices would no longer be based on "meritocracy."

Imagine that; was he thinking of merit appointments like Bush appointee Clarence Thomas whose credentials were slightly underwhelming. Or did he have in mind Justices Alito and Roberts, whose main appeal for George Bush seemed to have been their conservative, anti-choice, pro-business approach to judicial oversight. Their denial of Lilly Ledbetter's appeal regarding her long employment during which she was grossly underpaid in comparison to her male peers was a stunning example of a return to the concept of separate and unequal under the guiding principle that business decisions, no matter how unfair, should be left in the hands of the unjust.

Justice Souter had the good grace to be ashamed of the Court's decision to hand the 2000 election to George Bush and almost resigned as a result. Obviously the courts haven't always distinguished themselves with decisions that embodied the high principles upon which our country was founded. And what passed for a just system during the Bush years sullied our good name and insulted our collective intelligence.

Hopefully, this administration will work to protect the interests of our workforce and forge a more honorable course for our institutions, most especially our system of justice, and that the word "values" will once again come to represent something more than a glib partisan talking point.