Tag: tyranny

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American Anti-Tyranny and the Villains of Easter

Fresno Bee, April 20, 2025

For Christians, Easter is ultimately about the empty tomb and its promise of resurrection. But before the resurrection, there was the cross, which was widely viewed as a symbol of a terrifying system of imperial tyranny, a frequent instrument for executions during the Roman empire. Setting aside the miracles and the metaphysics, Easter offers an anti-tyrannical political message.

The Easter narrative warns against the dangers of greed, complicity and despotic power. It condemns the collusion of sycophants and the callous brutality of the mob. The story of Jesus’ execution exposes an entire system of unjust imperial rule over a subjugated people.

One of the villains of Easter is Judas, a money-grubbing thief who betrayed Jesus to the authorities. Another villain is Herod Antipas, who was also responsible for beheading John the Baptist. But it was Pontius Pilate, the authoritarian Roman ruler of Judaea, who conducted the trial of Jesus and was legally responsible for his crucifixion. That trial involved a bizarre ritual in which the mob was asked who it wanted to save. The mob cried out for Jesus to be crucified, while calling for the release of Barabbas, an insurrectionist.

All of this teaches a lesson about the need for a rules-based system of justice. Such a system would outlaw cruel punishments, such as scourging and crucifixion. It would prevent authoritarian rulers from consolidating the power to convict and punish. It would not defer to the stupid passions of the mob, nor would it depend upon the greed of paid informants. In general, it would avoid the excesses of swift imperial justice in favor of due process and the rule of law.

Such a system would be similar to that which is found in our own beleaguered constitutional system. The American Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, speech and the press, along with the right to assemble and petition. It prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures, requires due process of law and stipulates that those accused of crimes should be able to confront the witnesses against them. It also prohibits excessive fines, and cruel and unusual punishments.

This means that if a Jesus-like figure were to appear on the American scene, he would be free to preach and lead a movement, even if it infuriated religious and legal authorities. His followers would be free to protest, write and criticize the policies of the church and the state. And if this figure or his followers were accused of crimes, they would have basic rights that protect them against arbitrary detention. In our system, prisoners cannot be mocked or manhandled, or cruelly killed.

None of this was true in ancient Roman Judaea. The Roman authorities ruled with an iron fist. Crucifixion was intended to send a message to rebels and rabble-rousers. And while some of the locals may have thought that they could play along with imperial power, the Romans eventually destroyed the Jewish temple in Jerusalem. They also rounded up and killed Peter and Paul, and other Christians.

The American founders understood the dangers of imperial power run amok. In 1775, John Adams claimed that a republic was “a government of laws, and not of men.” He further said, “An empire is a despotism, and an emperor a despot, bound by no law or limitation, but his own will.”

Soon enough, in 1776, the Americans broke with England, claiming that the king had become tyrannical and despotic. The arbitrary and authoritarian application of the power to punish was viewed as a sure sign of tyranny. Among the complaints against King George listed in the Declaration of Independence are depriving people of “the benefits of trial by jury,” and “transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses.”

Unfortunately, our own government is now transporting people to foreign countries without due process. We are also threatening to occupy Greenland and annex Canada. Easter provides a cautionary tale for the present moment. It reminds us of the need for due process and the rule of law, and about the dangers of imperial excess.

The Easter narrative also calls for sympathy for the victims of unjust power. If it seems that we are more Roman than Christian these days, it can help to recall that the hero of Easter is Jesus and not Pontius Pilate.

Read more at: https://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/readers-opinion/article304438096.html#storylink=cpy

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The rule of law vs. the will of the tyrant

Fresno Bee, Nov. 3, 2024

This week, an arsonist burned ballot boxes in Washington and Oregon. This attack on the vote is, thankfully, a rare occurrence. But it is an ominous warning of threats to our rule-governed democracy.

Our country has established an orderly, rule-governed process for elections. Unfortunately, the rules have been recently disputed, specifically when Donald Trump challenged the idea of a rule-governed process when he refused to admit defeat in 2020. Some Americans are now confused about why the rules even matter to begin with.

Sadly, a number of Americans seem to admire a willingness to break the rules. A Marist poll from April of this year found that 41% of Americans agreed that “America has gotten so far off track that we need a leader who is willing to break some rules to set things right.” Fifty-six percent of Republicans agreed with that sentiment, as did 28% of Democrats.

This result was reiterated by a more recent poll from the Public Religion Research Institute which found that a third of Americans, and 55% of Trump supporters, agreed with the need for a “strong leader willing to break the rules.”

This attitude is Machiavellian and authoritarian. What matters, from this perspective, is gaining power. It does not matter how this is achieved because the end justifies the means.

This cynical idea is morally disastrous. It can be used to justify cheating in the whole of life. The cynic thinks rules are for suckers. And for some arch-cynics, rule-breaking becomes a way of life. What matters to the Machiavellian is outsmarting the saps who follow the rules.

Tyrants think that rules are made by the powerful for their own self-interest. From this standpoint, if you can rewrite the rules to maximize your own power, you’ve won. Not only have you defeated the old system, you’ve also created a new system in your own image.

In response, we ought to reassert the value of a rule-governed world. Rules create stability, structure and order that benefit everyone. Shared allegiance to a system of rules defuses violence and helps establish the possibility of social trust and cooperation. Shared rules allow us to plan for the future and develop common projects.

We rely upon rules to think, communicate, create and build. Grammar, logic, music and mathematics are fundamentally systems of rules. The sentence you are reading now makes sense because it follows the rules of the English language. The rules of language are mostly a matter of custom and habit. They are arbitrary but also important.

Games are like that, too: You can’t make a forward pass beyond the line of scrimmage in football, despite there being no necessary reason for that rule. Someone made it up long ago, and now we just play along. But if you break the rule, you’ll be penalized. And if you refuse to play according to that rule, you are not really playing football.

The legal system is presumably less arbitrary. Some laws appear to reflect the necessary “laws of nature,” as the Declaration of Independence put it, including the self-evident right to life, liberty and happiness. But the legal system also includes conventional and arbitrary elements, including laws about driving, paying taxes and voting.

The electoral college and our winner-takes-all system of voting does not reflect a law of nature. Rather, this system is a social and historical construction. This means that the system can be changed. But there are rules for changing the system, as defined by the Constitution and its amendment process. Burning a ballot box does nothing to change those rules. Nor does refusing to concede an election.

The American system of checks and balances is supposed to prevent a tyrant from corrupting the system of rules. But that system depends upon public trust. Beyond institutional checks and balances, we, the people, need to remind ourselves that rules matter.

The Machiavellians are wrong. The end does not justify the means. And those who are willing to break the rules to gain power are a threat to the very idea of a rule-governed democracy.

Read more at: https://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/readers-opinion/article294831724.html#storylink=cpy

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Is Justice Impartial or is Trump Right about Power Run Amok?

Fresno Bee, April 21, 2024

Skepticism about the Trump trials extends to cynicism about the entire political system

Can justice be impartial? This is an ancient question raised anew by the trials of Donald Trump, who has denigrated his indictments as politically motivated “witch hunts.” In Trump’s telling, this is all the work of biased prosecutors and “crooked” or “corrupt” judges.

Trump does not say that he will be vindicated in court by showing evidence and making arguments before the jury. Rather, our leading candidate for president casts doubt on the impartiality of the judicial system itself.

For Trump, justice is primarily a matter of power. He has said he will go after “the Biden crime family” if elected. He used to say he wanted to lock up Hilary Clinton. The Trumpian theory is that whoever is in power gets to punish those who are not in power.

This is an ancient idea. In Plato’s Republic, it is articulated by a character named Thrasymachus, a Greek name that means something like “fierce fighter.” Thrasymachus says justice is whatever the stronger party says it is. Plato rejects this as a tyrannical idea.

As I discuss in my book on Trump and tyranny, a tyrant desires the godlike power to create the law in his own image. This way of conceiving justice is based on bad theology and a pernicious view of political life. God is not a tyrant who arbitrarily makes up the law, but human tyrants and tyrannical regimes do behave in this capricious way.

The antidote to the tyrannical idea of justice is natural law and natural rights. Natural law holds that actions are objectively right or wrong, and that the legal system ought to administer justice impartially. On this theory, there is an objective truth of the matter, and punishments are meant to fit the crime.

A related idea focuses on producing good social consequences by using punishment to deter crime. This approach depends upon a general commitment to the rule of law as a good thing for individuals and society. But there are limits to what can be done in pursuit of “domestic tranquility.” Terrifying and arbitrary punishments may work to “scare people straight,” as the saying goes, but the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution prohibits the sorts of cruel and unusual punishments used by tyrannical regimes.

Further, a stable political and legal system depends upon basic standards of evidence and proof. Such a system assumes (for the most part) an objective account of knowledge and truth. This assumption holds that facts exist and that reasonable people — a jury of your peers — will tend to agree about evidence and argument.

But when people do not agree about the status of the evidence, the arguments or the value of the law itself, there is the risk of chaos and violence. Cynics will claim that since the whole thing is a farce and there is no such thing as objective justice, then there is nothing left but struggles for power.

This seems to be the point of the Trumpian effort to muddy the water with regard to proof, evidence, facts and institutions. Trumpians suggest that there are “alternative facts” and “fake news.” They claim that the system is a “swamp” that needs to be drained. In this environment, skepticism about the Trump trials extends to cynicism about the entire political system, including the electoral process. Thus, those jailed for their criminal acts on January 6 become “hostages” captured by those in power, whom Trump has pledged to pardon.

With all of this on the table, it is clear that the Trump trials are of the utmost importance for the body politic. These are public performances of the law in which impartiality, objectivity and justice are themselves on trial. The audience for this trial is “we, the people.” As these trials unfold, we must ask ourselves about our faith in the system: Is the criminal justice system a travesty of power run amok? Or is it possible for justice to be neutral, objective and truthful?

Read more at: https://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/readers-opinion/article287736320.html#storylink=cpy

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Tyranny from Plato to Trump

I’m pleased to announce the publication of my new book, Tyranny from Plato to Trump: Fools, Sycophants, and Citizens.

The book offers insight into the perennial problem of tyranny. Tyrants seek to grab power. They are supported by sycophants. And cheered on by fools. This is a political problem as well as a social and spiritual problem. There are tyrants in our families and in our businesses. There is also a tyrannical tendency in our souls. The same is true of the tendency to suck up to the powerful. And each of us can behave moronically, more interested in amusement than ethics or truth.

The cure is spiritual and political. We benefit from self-examination. And we need social and political guardrails that prevent tyrants from consolidating power.

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January 6: American Democracy and the Challenge of Tyranny

Fresno Bee, January 9, 2022

The American political system remains in crisis, one year after the Jan. 6 riot. A recent poll shows that 40% of Americans believe that the 2020 election was illegitimate. The same poll indicates that a majority of us fear the future will bring more political violence.

This is alarming. But polarization and distrust are par for the course in the American system. This dysfunction is a feature of the system, and not a bug. Conflict was hard-wired into a system that was set up to safeguard against tyranny.

I explore this idea in more detail in my forthcoming book, “Tyranny from Plato to Trump.” The American founders were focused on preventing tyranny. They were less interested in efficiency than in preventing the consolidation of power.

The question of whether our system is working depends upon what we think this system is supposed to be doing. If we think the government is supposed to respond to the will of the majority, we will be disappointed. But if we think that the American system is intended to prevent tyranny, then the virtue of its dysfunctional design becomes apparent.

The problem of tyranny is an ancient one. In the ancient world, political power was often consolidated in the hands of a strongman. Sophocles warned against the hubris of Oedipus. Plato warned that tyrants were predators who preyed upon their own people.

The American founders studied ancient philosophy and literature. They accused the British king of behaving tyrannically. When they set up the American system of government, they were interested in preventing tyranny by establishing the Constitution’s separation of powers. James Madison defined tyranny as the “accumulation of all powers” in the “same hands.” The solution is a system in which divided powers limit each other. As Madison put it, “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.”

The good news about the American system is that its checks and balances worked to prevent Donald Trump from consolidating power. Local officials refused to comply with Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election. The House impeached the lame duck president. The courts provided independent confirmation of the integrity of the election. Members of Congress certified the election, led by Vice President Mike Pence. And when the Capitol was assaulted by an angry mob, those insurrectionists were arrested, put on trial and convicted.

All of this is part of a slow and messy process. This is the way the American system is designed to work. It moves slowly and incrementally. It is not easy for a strongman to take control in this system and purge his enemies. Nor is it easy for democratic majorities to enact radical change. There is too much friction built into the system for quick and radical solutions.

Some people don’t like this sluggish system. Some long for a nimble system that can react quickly to emergencies. A number of people even seem to desire a savior who would ride to the rescue with a flaming sword.

But the people’s desire for a savior can be exploited by would-be tyrants. In response to emergencies, the people are often willing to sacrifice ethics in the name of expedience.

History teaches us that there are no saviors. It shows us that when power is concentrated, corruption is sure to follow. Atrocities occur when reaction outpaces rationality.

The U.S. Constitution is not perfect. It was flawed at the start, since it permitted slavery. A civil war was fought to eliminate that peculiar form of tyranny. Other corrections and improvements followed.

It took centuries to improve this system. More work remains to be done. One obvious problem is the inordinate power of small states. Citizens of small states such as Wyoming and Rhode Island have much more representational power than citizens of California. And citizens of Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico have no real representation.

We ought to continue to improve the system. But this is tedious work. Progress will be slow in coming. And there will be no perfect result.

This will bother those who dream of utopia. But utopias do not exist. The human condition does not permit perfection. There are no political saviors. And the dream of a savior can easily become a tyrannical nightmare.