Last night, I attended Streetlaw’s first annual awards dinner. As chair of the awards committee, I had the honor of presenting the Teacher of the Year award to Fred Cole from Marquette, Michigan, a fine social studies instructor who brings the Constitution alive in his classes.

Streetlaw’s Chesterfield Smith award went to Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who gave a speech about the rule of law. She emphasized the importance of civic education (in general) and Streetlaw’s programs (in particular) as a foundation for a strong system of impartial justice. Before she took the podium, the American Bar Association President, Robert J. Grey, Jr., had given the evening’s keynote address, in which he had explicitly criticized elected officials for trying to put pressure on the judiciary in the Terri Schiavo case. (Grey is quoted in today’s New York Times on the same subject.) Justice O’Connor paused in the middle of her written defense of judicial independence to say (I paraphrase her closely): “And thank you, Robert Grey, for your earlier remarks on that subject. It’s been a little troublesome lately in that respect.”

When Congress passes a bill of attainder, attempting to coerce the judiciary to reach the conclusion it prefers, and then members of Congress explain the killing of judges as a reaction to public frustration with the judiciary, it’s obvious what the true “conservative” response should be. Justice O’Connor provided it last night, in her pointed and rather tart defense of judicial independence, separation of powers, and rule of law.

(Senator Cornyn’s full speech that caused all the controversy included some coveats and qualifications–and overlooked the Schiavo case completely. But there was an inflammatory passage that he must have expected to be noticed and quoted:

“Finally, I don’t know if there is a cause-and-effect connection, but we have seen some recent episodes of courthouse violence in this country–certainly nothing new; we seem to have run through a spate of courthouse violence recently that has been on the news. I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters on some occasions where judges are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public, that it builds and builds to the point where some people engage in violence, certainly without any justification, but that is a concern I have that I wanted to share.”)

Civility is important. When public figures attack individuals and their motives rather than ideas and policies, they can make it harder to work together–even on completely unrelated issues. Furthermore, politics as a whole can become unpleasant, in which case some citizens will avoid participating.

Tom DeLay and his friends have certainly not been “civil” in their response to the Schiavo case:

‘The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior, but not today,’ said Mr. DeLay. .. Saying that the courts ‘thumbed their nose at Congress and the president,’ Mr. DeLay, of Texas, suggested Congress was exploring responses and declined to rule out the possibility of Congressional impeachment of the judges involved.

[…]

Dr. James C. Dobson, the founder of the evangelical group Focus on the Family, said the judges who would not stop the removal of Ms. Schiavo’s feeding tube were ‘guilty not only of judicial malfeasance’ but of the cold-blooded, cold-hearted extermination of an innocent human life.”

I am not going to defend these statements, but I will propose some reasons not to take them overly seriously.

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I’m moving my site to a new host today—so that I can install new software to defeat various forms of spam. Once the process is complete, everything (including this blog’s address) will be exactly the same, from a visitor’s perspective. However, during the process, the site may be “down” for a time. Since anything I post today may disappear in the transition, I’m not going to write a substantive contribution. I should be able to post safely tomorrow.

I was in New York City today on business. My meetings were good, but draining; they have left me too tired to write anything of much substance. Waiting at La Guardia for the shuttle back to DC, I’m remembering how I spent some spare minutes during the day: gawking at the midtown skyscrapers, admiring the murals in Rockefeller Center and the interior of St. Patrick’s, watching the skyline from Queens, and (best of all) visiting Christie’s auction house. Asian objects were on sale, including Samurai armor, Indian statues from the 2-3rd century AD (carved under heavy Greek influence), and a huge, serene Buddha. The showroom looked exactly like a museum, except that people were handling the objects, peering into the ancient Chinese vases, stroking Khmer statuettes, rotating porcelein busts on their bases–just like the shoppers across the street at Gap.

(Macon, Georgia.) I have been recalling the conversations last Friday and Saturday at Catholic University, especially some comments by Lew Friedland and Carmen Sirianni. The following is my own view, but I believe it’s generally consonant with theirs.

We need two levels of politics. One involves major policy issues, the kind of questions that are ultimately decided by legislative votes, court decisions, and referenda. In considering these issues (e.g., taxation, welfare, war, or the right to abortion), people fall into ideological groups that are represented by major organizations and parties. Voting is a citizen’s main source of power. Debating, organizing, petitioning, and raising consciousness are important, but they count only insofar as they change votes. Free and fair elections are what make this level of politics democratic.

Politics at the macro-level can sometimes be “win-win” and creative. Wise legislation and competent public administration can make everyone better off. Nevertheless, a lot of macro-level politics is zero-sum, because (for example) a victory for abortion rights is a loss for abortion opponents–and vice-versa. Indeed, this level of politics should be competitive, because tough competition between parties and ideologies gives citizens choices and keeps incumbents honest. Besides, when parties are forced to compete, they mobilize ordinary people to engage as voters and activists; thus competition encourages participation. Perhaps the worst flaw in today’s macro-politics is a lack of fair competition caused by gerrymandered electoral districts, incumbents’ advantages in campaign finance, and various impediments to insurgent campaigns and movements.

There is another level of politics–most common at the local level and within institutions–that involves direct participation. At this level, many of the people who will be directly affected by a decision should personally participate in deliberations about it. For example, before a religious congregation makes a major financial decision, often the whole group discusses it. Furthermore, there is no need to isolate discussion from action at this level of politics. The same people who meet and talk about an issue can also implement their own decisions. A student government can decide to implement a mentoring program and then actually serve as the mentors. A neighborhood group can decide to protest a crackhouse and then actually picket it. An academic department can choose a new curriculum and then actually teach it.

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