Emerson penned a phrase that is oft misquoted, the important adjective usually omitted. He wrote a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. Consistency merely to be consistent was the that which made it foolish.
I was thinking about this because my wife recently questioned a bumper sticker I put on my car. Someone had asked permission to use the phrase, which I had offered here at Daily Kos, but with the change of administration there clearly was no market. And yet there should be.
The phrase was for a while my sig, and it read If impeachment is off the table, so is democracy And while I certainly do not seek Congressional action against our new president, for whom I gladly voted, glancing at the other diaries this morning and seeing someone opining that the President would be impeached before Judge Bybee, I remembered that bumper sticker. That got me thinking, and immediately Emerson's phrase came to mind. I want to explore the idea of consistency, foolishness, and - yes - impeachment.
There some who want a rigid application of rules with no regard to persons. We are having that debate yet again in light of the President's remarks about seeking justices who have compassion. Opposed to this idea is that the law is supposed to mean the same in its application for all - after all, is not one prime reason for the Supreme Court to issue a writ of certiorari a difference in how Federal circuits have ruled on matters of Federal law? Is it not logical that the Federal law should mean the same in the supposedly liberal 9th Circuit as it does is the supposedly conservative 4th? Is not that a reasonable expectation of consistency, so that we are a nation of laws and not of men?
We can of course consider another possibility, that the law as written is capable of multiple interpretations, which can lead to the situation of Circuits reasonably coming to different conclusions of how it should be applied. Perhaps even though it is the same law, the circumstances in which it is applied are sufficiently different as to warrant a different interpretation. But then, what guidance do those conflicting interpretations provide in a future case, perhaps with yet another set of circumstances?
As a teacher, I try to balance consistency with reasonableness. My classroom is not a court of law. I therefore have somewhat more flexibility. I do not keep rigidly to a pacing guide because it ignores the reality of the students - individually and collectively - seated before me in each class. I may teach very differently because of differences from one period to the next, and if one class 'gets" it I might move one while if another does not I spiral back, reteaching until they do. To be consistent, to treat each class exactly the same, would truly be foolish because it would be contrary to the goal of having the students learn.
Similarly, in my application of discipline, I strive for fairness rather than mere consistency. The purpose of discipline is not merely that I can assert near-dictatorial powers within the four walls of my classroom - I can, but it would be contrary to the primary goal of student learning, which should include some elements of self-discipline. I have to know sufficiently about my students to be able to make a determination of how to correct behavior. And that determination must include the impact upon the other students who see how the discipline is applied, and why. It would of course be far easier to have rigid rules, so that the consistency would leave no uncertainty as to consequences. And yet, I have found to take such an approach often leads to an inevitable response from a large number of students: if I were to insist on such rigidity in one aspect of my instructional approach, they would demand it in all, and they would push back, doing only what was specifically required. If anyone doubts this, all you need to do is walk into the average classroom after completion of mandatory high stakes testing and watch how many students have shut down. Or even better, compare a classroom in which students act in lockstep fashion, whether it is group chanting or sitting still in their seats and raising their hands to speak with one in which - as is often the case in mind - there is what I call creative disorder, and attempt to evaluate where more learning is actually occurring, which students are more engaged.
And yet my approach is not always creative disorder, because of my 6 classes two have students who if they do not have a more rigid structure are quite willing and capable of destroying the learning environment for others.
So as an instructor/teacher, I may on surface appear inconsistent. And yet, there is a consistency, one which is goal oriented, that goal being the educational development of my students, including developing the ability to manage and direct their own learning.
I have some limits that are very much bright lines. I have not abandoned the idea that I will have a student removed from my room for inappropriate behaviors. And even my AP classes are well aware that for all the flexibility I allow there are limits not to be transgressed, that I reserve my right to impose my will if I deem it the only way to achieve the primary goal of learning. Having a student removed, which subjects that student to possible suspension, is NOT off the table.
That brings me to impeachment. It may seem odd that so early in the onset of a new administration for which I voted, worked, and advocated, I would again raise the issue of impeachment. And yet there is a non-foolish consistency in my approach. Let me provide the context from which this approach derives.
A few years ago we were in one of my AP classes discussing the NSA spying on Americans. I remember one student, now in college, who was at the time very conservative, saying that he had no trouble trusting Bush to have that kind of power to do the right thing to protect us. I asked him which Democrat he most feared and/or disliked. He said Hillary Clinton. I then asked if he were willing to give the same authority to her were she to become president. He was blond and very pale to begin with, but whatever color he had immediately drained from his face as he considered that prospect. I then offered this thought - that the power we grant to a president we admire and support must be the same as those we are willing to grant to one we despise and/or fear. Similarly, if we are inclined to restrict the actions of a president we despise or fear we must be willing to live with the identical restrictions upon the president we most admire and support. Otherwise we will become a government of men, not of laws.
To me, impeachment is like my ultimate authority in the classroom. It is something I hope never becomes necessary, occasions for its imposition in our government being far less frequent than it is with my 180+ teenagers. Yet in both cases it must remain on the table.
We have developed a concept of the presidency that is sweeping in its powers and authority. But it is not unlimited. Despite someone like Nixon arguing that it is not against the law if a president does it or the various minions of the Bush administration applying a notion of the unitary executive combined with a concept that a president functioning as commander in chief in a time of conflict is basically unable to be restrained by Congress or Courts, we have an ultimate limit, and that is the power of the representatives of the people, the Congress, to formally charge the president through impeachment by the House and to remove him before the end of his term through conviction by the Senate. And not just the president - judges, cabinet officials, and others.
Our Constitution was ratified in 1788. In the ensuing almost 221 years, the House has only impeached 16 officials. One was a US Senator, one a Justice of the Supreme Court, two were presidents, one was a cabinet member, and the rest Federal judges other than justices. Only 7, all Federal judges not on SCOTUS, have been removed.
And yet the threat of impeachment, because it remained possible, has clearly had some positive impact. Remember, Nixon was not actually impeached - House Judiciary voted out three articles but he resigned before the entire House acted, knowing that he would be impeached and having been pointedly informed that he would not survive a trial in the Senate: Barry Goldwater purportedly told Nixon that if a trial occurred Nixon would have at most ten or so votes in his favor, and that number did not include Goldwater.
Clearly there have been other officials who resigned even before the House could begin actions. And one must reasonably conclude that others refrained from some actions because of the realization that doing those actions could result in impeachment.
We the People are supposedly sovereign. We have few enough tools on a regular basis to exercise our sovereignty. We have the franchise, which is one reason I am a strong advocate for broadening it, for finding ways to accommodate having more people able to vote, and also why I am an equally strong opponent of those who would use various methods to try to prevent some from voting.
We can choose to vote people out of office at the conclusion of a term. We have only one opportunity to do that with Presidents, given the 2-term limit of the 22nd Amendment. And at the federal level we lack a recall provision such as that which exists in some states. I do not argue for creating such a provision with respect to presidents and federal legislators, because we have if we do not forswear it a tool that allows our will to be expressed in extreme circumstances. That tool is impeachment.
So long as we do not abandon the idea of impeachment, we have an ultimate weapon whose existence can in theory restrain the worst impulses of the executive - and of judges, and as was shown in 1797 with Sen. Blount members of the Federal legislative (although nowadays rather than using impeachment the individual body can choose to expel an offending member).
With my students, there are some lines that they all know should not be crossed. If they do go too far, they know that there will be consequences, that those consequences are severe, and in my classroom quite certain. Perhaps as a result we are rarely confronted with such situations, and we can - flexibly in many cases - find ways of making the adjustments necessary for the positive learning environment to which all my students are entitled. I am able to be creatively inconsistent in smaller areas to ensure that we do not reach a point where there can be no doubt, where the application of sanctions will be consistent - and sure - and severe.
To remove the possibility of impeachment creates a situation where, in my opinion, the official(s) against whom it would be applicable are no longer truly bound, where the behavior too easily becomes egregious or worse.
I wrote a long piece in which I objected to the statement by Pelosi that impeachment was off the table. It is the ultimate weapon in our democratic republic to restrain the behavior of officials beyond what We the People have given them in our attempt to have a more perfect union.
I admire Barack Obama. That does not keep me from offering criticism when I think it is deserved, any more than my severe dislike for George Bush or Ronald Reagan would have prevented me from offering praise for those few things in their administrations I found worthy of praise. I tried to offer a consistency that was not foolish, to speak as I deemed necessary, to fulfill my responsibility at a citizen and as a human being to speak out when I saw things that were wrong, and to affirm what I could.
I have a hard time imagining Obama's administration being so egregious in its actions to warrant my considering the possibility of impeachment. Nevertheless, even for this president whom I admire, I am unwilling to surrender the ultimate legal restraint that we, through our elected representatives, can impose.
I still have my Obama bumper sticker. Above is is a stark black bumper sticker which offers the words which I believe must still apply. This is to me a non-foolish consistency. It is something I strongly believe about our system of government.
So let me end this meditation with those words, which were for so long my sig, even as I hope and pray that the power of the application is never again necessary:
If impeachment is off the table, so is democracy
Peace.