Lessons from Iran

In the 21^st Century, billions still suffer under the rule of corrupt, murderous despots. What many do not understand is that human beings suffer because they consent to do so. The “they” I speak of is the collective will of the nation and not of specific individuals.

Consider Iran. In 1989, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei became the Supreme Leader of Iran with the divine right to rule; an Ayatollah is not elected. Last week he pronounced his divine sanction on the reelection of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and ruled that all further disputes over the presidency were to end.

On the surface, it is easy to label the victims and the victimizers here; and on one level, we would be correct. Yet, however satisfying our story of good guys and bad guys is, it doesn’t point us toward change.

Human beings exist in relationship to one another. A moment’s reflection tells us that, at least until now, the powers of Khamenei have flown not from divine authority but from the will of the population. Yes, I concede, there is at least a minority of Iranian people who have had enough of this theocracy and of Basij, its vicious militia/vigilante enforcement arm. But if you doubt that Khamenei rules by popular support of Iranians, ask yourself this question: “How powerful would Khamenei be if he lived in the United States? If he was an American, could he establish a theocracy?”

You might answer, “Very powerful, if he had the power of a brutal militia behind him.”  But that begs the question of how the Iranian theocracy formed and why many Iranians take up arms in its defense. A full answer is beyond the scope of this blog post, but we can simply say that many Iranians share a common understanding that their society should be formed as a theocracy.

In Iranian society there is a great deal of suffering, not the least of which is that Iran’s full range of human potential is not being expressed. Why would anyone choose to be a victim of such a society? One reason is that victims escape responsibility for their own choices and their own failures by saying, “It is for the good of God,” or “Divine will has ordained this.”

We can wish the Iranians well as they bravely strive to create a new, collective understanding of how their society should be organized. At the same time—as our own house is not in order—we can learn from them important lessons.

Once a tyrannical despot is in place, he or she is not easily dislodged. That is why our founding fathers put strict limits on the coercive power of government. The spontaneous forces and institutions that build a free and vibrant civilization are not easily rebuilt once they are destroyed. As we continue to relinquish our own freedoms, getting our freedoms back will not be simple. It will not be a matter of simply saying that we made a mistake and we want to start over again.

There is all the difference between activities that are organized around government and activities organized around a free-market. If, for instance, you go out to eat and have a bad meal, you simply do not patronize that restaurant again. If you go to the Motor Vehicle Administration, stand in a long line and are treated rudely, you have no other viable option. Our lives run smoothly and we are free to develop and express our human potential to the extent that we are free to choose. Yet, collectively, we are rushing to turn over to the government more and more aspects of our daily lives—automobiles, health care, energy, etc. When the limit on what government can do is determined by a vote and not by a principle, freedom is surely lost.

Before we silently sneer at people who worship Ayatollahs, we might wonder what flawed human beings we Americans worship? Through what distorted lenses do we see? To whom do we turn over our own responsibilities so that at the end of the day we have someone to blame?

The Republicans and the Democrats—and those who worship them—play this Kabuki dance: Whoever is out of power gets to blame the other party for all the ills that befall the country. Daily, Republicans and Democrats and the pundits bang each other over the head with foam mallets; and the public reinforces its collective belief that it really does matter which party is in power.

But, how can it matter? Both parties—acting without principles—have been taking the county in the direction of larger budget deficits, more ruinous foreign adventures, and less domestic freedom for many decades. As we choose to be distracted by this Kabuki dance, we neither educate ourselves or our children on the principles that support prosperous and free societies.

If we are Democrats, we claim to be victims of Bush. If we are Republicans, we claim to be victims of Obama. All of this is a lie. We have created, through our own collective ignorance, the mess we see. We would rather blame than be mature enough to take responsibility and become a free people.

Before it gets better, things are going to get a lot worse in the United States. The stakes we face are incalculably greater and the consequences harder to overcome than a bad restaurant meal. Our Iranian brothers and sisters are teaching us just how high the stakes can be.

The Thrill of Victory and the Certainty of Defeat

It was 1994. Republicans running for public office on their so-called “Contract with America” promised, among other things, budgetary reform; they gained control of the House for the first time in over 40 years. In 1995, the Republicans gained control of the Senate. In 2002, they controlled the House, the Senate, and the Presidency. What they delivered was ruinous budget deficits, setting records at the time. If any Republicans, other than Congressman Ron Paul, felt their policies were damaging to America, they didn’t speak up.

Now that they are in exile, Republicans complain about the political ignominy that they are suffering. A fair assessment is that their ignominy is well-earned. They have yet been able to articulate a credible alternative to the destructive policies of the Democrats.

It was 1998. The United Auto Workers, filled with pride and arrogance over having won another contract dispute with General Motors, marched victoriously through downtown Flint, Michigan. Did any of these union members fear that the rules, salaries, and benefits that they had negotiated would undermine the sustainability of the company? Those who harbored such fears were certainly in the minority. Now, eleven years later, General Motors is bankrupt; its stock price has fallen to an unfathomable $1 a share. And in Flint there are proposals to raze vast sections of the abandoned city and returning the land to green space.

It was May, 2009. Barack Obama and his wife Michelle received a thunderous standing ovation from the audience at a Broadway theater in New York. They were out on a “date.” Some objected to the hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money spent for the trip. The objections were dismissed with a cavalier explanation—President Obama had promised his wife a Broadway show. When asked how much the trip cost, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs gave a stumbling response: “I would say that the costs are proportionate with travel for presidents and I would encourage you to look up previous coverage on travel costs.”

Nowhere in Obama’s administration did there seem to be even a simple acknowledgement that millions of Americans are facing with very hard financial choices every day, and their tax dollars were funding his date. Of course, Obama’s date is just a symbol of the unprecedented waste going on daily in Washington as resources are hijacked from productive uses and redirected to non-productive uses.

By what principles are Obama and the Democrats in Congress governing?  A fair-minded assessment is that their principles are about as discernible as those that the Republicans governed under. In other words, they haven’t any.

Those who don’t know how free-markets work accuse leaders of corporations of making shortsighted decisions for short-run profits. No doubt, that happens often enough. But the market corrects for this: Such corporations are selected against by the natural forces of the marketplace. Over time, as in the case of General Motors, they are the least able to fulfill the most compelling desires of consumers.

Democrats and Republicans really are alike. The evidence shows that nothing matters to them except amassing huge campaign war chests and winning the next election. Routinely they vote on bills that they have never even read. If being a principled leader and an honorable steward of the United States Constitution ever crosses their minds, they are afraid to express such sentiments.

Unlike the Republicans and General Motors, the downfall in popularity of Barack Obama is still months or years in the future. For now, he is still savoring the thrill of victory and the adulation of the crowds. Like the Republicans and like General Motors, his thrill of victory will be followed by the certainty of defeat for without principles one cannot lead; one cannot be at peace.

“Nothing can bring you peace but yourself; nothing, but the triumph of principles,” advised Ralph Waldo Emerson. “What will a man gain by winning the whole world, at the cost of his true Self?” asked Jesus.

In her book Soul-Kissed, Ann Linthorst tells a story of a “woman who was showing her spiritual teacher around her backyard….The teacher commented on the number of birds. The woman exclaimed. ‘Oh, I have never noticed any birds out there before.’ Her teacher replied, ‘Madam, you must have birds in your heart before you will find birds in your backyard.’”

The “birds” that our politicians do not have their hearts are timeless, clearly articulated values and principles and the integrity to hold to them. Before this economic crisis is over, the Democrats will take their rightful place beside the Republicans, both held in contempt by the public.

Who Mourns For the Prostitute?

Marcia Powell, forty-eight, was serving twenty-seven months for prostitution in an Arizona state prison. Late in May, she was placed in an outdoor holding cell for approximately four hours. The cell was not shaded; the outdoor temperature was 108 degrees. She was left in the cell until she collapsed, despite three corrections officers being just twenty yards away in a monitoring control room. Powell died the next day.

To be sure Powell lived a very troubled life. But why did the three corrections officers choose to commit violence against Powell? Clearly, they saw her as less than a human being; she was a mere object to them. Her comfort, her safety, her life was apparently of no concern to them.

The Arbinger Institute through their seminars and best-selling books has done much work in helping individuals understand the damage they to do to themselves and to others when they see others as objects. Violent behavior begins with a violent heart. Arbinger (their work is not attributed to individual authors) writes: “To see a fellow person as an inferior object is to harbor a violent heart towards that person.”

When do we begin to see others as an object? Arbinger writes: “When we regard others’ hopes, needs, cares, and fears as inferior to, or less legitimate than, our own, we see others as less than they are—as  objects rather than as people.” In other words, Powell was a mere prostitute, a mere inmate who needed to be controlled.

While the responsibility of the corrections officers for their actions is inescapable, the responsibility of the institution that they served cannot be ignored. Butler Shaffer, in his book Calculated Chaos, does an important service in dissecting how our institutions often produce violence. Leaders of coercive institutions, according to Shaffer, “regard their functions as being to manipulate, threaten, induce or coerce the group members into subordinating their personal interests and promoting organizational purposes.”

What institutional purposes could the leaders of the prison system have? Perhaps, bigger budgets, more perks, and more power for themselves. A humane prison culture that facilitates rehabilitation might not cross their minds. The result of all of this can only be fear. The more the culture of the prison is fear-based, the more dehumanized both the prison guards and the prisoners become.

Brandy Britton was a former assistant professor of sociology and anthropology at the University of Maryland.  In 1999 she resigned amidst controversy. Her second husband was abusive and assaulted her. In 2006, after running into financial troubles, she became a $300 an hour high-end escort. After relentless prosecution by county authorities, she committed suicide in 2007.

Eliot Spitzer, the disgraced former New York governor, prosecuted prostitutes during his tenure as attorney general of New York. After resigning as governor for being a client of prostitution ring, he was never indicted; now he is in the process of reinventing himself as a media columnist and public speaker.

You don’t have to be a feminist to notice the disparities in how Powell, Britton, and Spitzer were treated. Then there is the question of why the citizens of Arizona, Maryland, and other states are not troubled that their tax money goes to prosecute and incarcerate prostitutes in the first place.

There is really no way to reform the system directly—our prisons, our courts, our laws against victimless crimes. Correct one abuse and two more will appear next month. The real reform begins inside each of us. When we stop seeing our fellow human beings as objects then more humane, non-coercive institutions will automatically arise.