More and more disturbing shifts in the political culture are occurring in America. These shifts are toward the increased use of force for factions to get their way. Their goal is to help one faction and harm another faction by using power by indirect means. All of them express a highly dubious morality of our politics, moving them in wrong directions.
(1) “Neary twenty states across the county have introduced legislation that would require all presidential and vice presidential candidates to release their individual tax returns in order to appear on the ballot during the presidential or general election, according to data from the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL)”
Ballot access is an indirect way to exercise power. Can this movement be constitutional? Our constitution lists only 3 requirements to run for president. If a state limits ballot access for a party because of a requirement like this, it appears to be rewriting the constitution.
(2) Social media restrict their platform use depending upon political content. This is an indirect way of using power to advance the views of one faction and suppress the views of another.
(3) Governor Cuomo of New York attempts to suppress the NRA by denying it banking services in the state. He attempts this by threatening banks and insurance companies that deal with the NRA.
(4) Operation Choke Point. The name reveals the technique, which was to squeeze financial institutions. “Operation Choke Point was a 2013 initiative of the United States Department of Justice, which investigated banks in the United States and the business they did with firearm dealers, payday lenders, and other companies believed to be at higher risk for fraud and money laundering.”
The idea was to pressure lenders who finance various businesses. Cuomo’s idea is the same.
(5) Sanctions. The U.S. browbeats many third-party countries to enforce its boycotts upon second-party countries and individuals within these countries. It uses various threats of punishments to these innocent third parties.
If the U.S. has a beef with Iran, real or imaginary, it’s wrong for it to threaten China with retaliation if China doesn’t stop buying Iranian oil. Why should China be the object of force of the U.S.? Chinese people have a right to buy oil from Iran even if the U.S. judges that Iran is guilty of some crimes.
These examples are analogous to extortion, which is obtaining something through threats. Keeping Trump off the ballot if he doesn’t release his tax returns is outright extortion, but it also applies the threats to those innocent third parties who may wish to vote for Trump. Social media have gone beyond threats to outright bans. Those who are banned lose, but additionally these bans deprive potential innocent audiences of the banned political content. Sanctions and pressures against those who are innocent of wrong-doing attempts to make these third-parties guilty of what the accuser claims the second-party is doing.
In the moral sphere, the U.S. doesn’t have the say on what is moral behavior between Iran and China. One cannot claim that China is guilty of something and deserves punishment if China deals with Iran, who is claimed to be guilty of something. In the everyday personal moral sphere, dealing with people who commit crimes, such as selling them food, doesn’t make one morally guilty of a crime.
Moral matters are frequently complex and demand individual consideration and solutions. The law code of a state and its application, or in this case mis-application, is not the moral be-all and end-all. Attempts to achieve a morally perfect world by extending state power to extortionate approaches is an immoral approach to enforcing morality.
8:50 am on April 28, 2019
