Those words were spoken by a white cop to black woman in Florida. The year was 1970. The Levi family's Lincoln Continental was pulled over by the cop late at night and Walter, the husband, was made to get out. Eileen, who died this past year, got out with her three boys to try to protect her husband when they heard the words in the title of this diary.
If you want, you can read about the life of Eileen Levi here in the Washington Post, as one of Nine Stories (you can access them all by clicking on the pictures across the top.
This diary is not about Eileen Levi, even though I admire her as a teacher. It is about those who have power and can abuse it, and why we must always have oversight. It was reading the words with which I titled this that convinced me I had to write this diary.
Yesterday I posted several comments in open threads about post from Andrew Sullivan at his blog at The Atlantic, The Daily Dish. He was looking back at several posts in October, one of which was an email from a reader in response to what he posted, and finally an email from a reader in response to his reposting of those two October pieces. In order, they are
- Posts Of The Year: They Tortured A Man They Knew To Be Innocent, October 1, 2009
- Email Of The Year: October 2, 2009
- Torture Will Stay With Us
I strongly urge reading all three, in order. In the first, Sullivan provides links to a Huffington Post piece by Andy Worthington and to Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the U. S. District Court in DC, who also served 9 years as chief judge of the FISA Court, appointed by CJ Rehnquist to that position, and to the Federal Bench by Bill Clinton. The case in question involved a Kuwaiti man named Fouad al-Rabiah, taken into custody in Afghanistan, transported to Guantanamo, where he was tortured (using "enhanced interrogation methods"). Those holding him eventually determined he was innocent. And then? Read the following from p. 41 of the Judge's opinion, something quoted in the 2nd post by a Justice Department trial lawyer: al-Rabiah was told by his principal interrogator
"There is nothing against you. But there is no innocent person here. So, you should confess to something so you can be charged and sentenced and serve your sentence and then go back to your family and country, because you will not leave this place innocent."
(the italics were added by the Justice Department lawyer)
There is more to consider. The third post was from someone who reminded Sullivan of the Chicago police commander who had tortured people in interrogations to get false confessions, which also meant the real perpetrators were still walking free, and how those in the State Legislature of Illinois, including a young State Senator named Barack Obama, had moved to require all interrogations be videotaped to prevent such abuses in the future.
As I read that I remembered that in fact the CIA had videotaped interrogations, but then when what they were doing began to become known destroyed the video tapes.
Let me step back for a minute. All humans with power of any kind may have the temptation to abuse that power. I first understood this at Parris Island, U. S. Marine Corps Recruit Depot, in 1965. On the day of our arrival, as we were being processed, for some reason I was told to give instructions to other recruits. I forget exactly for what part of the processing this was, but I found myself barking out instructions in a tone of voice similar to that of the drill instructions. I also found that I was getting a response from others strongly similar to how they responded to the DIs "yes sir" while almost cowering, and I realized that I had implied power over others.
I have thought back to that day in 1965 many times. I have worked for abusive bosses. I have seen abusive public officials and law enforcement personnel. I have also had responsibility for others - as a fire team leader in infantry training, as a boss in business and government, as a teacher and a coach. I'd like to think I was not abusive, but I have to wonder how much of the restraint I showed in the use of power was because I realized that my actions were subject to review by others, and my statement on things that happened might not always be the final word.
Perhaps it is our human weakness. We are tempted to wield power, to intimidate, because we can, because it seems more efficient.
I am then reminded of an ancient Latin phrase, from the poet Juvenal, Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? I have reflected on this phrase before, in this diary from February 22, 2009. I will not repeat here what I wrote then.
The phrase is important. Who watches those who watch us? We give people authority to keep us safe, orderly secure, to be certain. But we are supposed to be a government of laws, not of men. That is in part because we are not angels. As Madison wrote in Federalist 51,
If men were angels, no government would be necessary. f angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.
the necessity of auxiliary precautions That includes oversight of all government actions. The primary source of the oversight of the executive should be the people's elected representatives. But both the executive and the legislature are political branches, sometimes overly responsive to the momentary passions of the time, whether those be fear or anger matters not, even if justified.
In the first of the three posts by Sullivan we read the following:
Mercifully, America under Bush and Cheney was not a totalitarian regime.
It had an executive branch that embraced the ethic of tyranny in warfare, and a legislative branch so supine it was a toothless adjunct, but it retained a judiciary that began, too late, of course, to push back against the hermetically sealed war-and-torture cycle. The Founders were wise to add such a check. Without it, we would have no way out of the maze that Cheney pushed us in.
Judge Kollar-Kotelly. The majority of the Supreme Court in cases like Hamdi. On perhaps a different scale, Judge John Jones in Kitzmiller v Dover ISD, or Judge Rubina in dismissing the charges against the Blackwater thugs - abiding by law and principle, independent of the desires of the executive or the passions of the people for what would be obvious justice. That is one form of oversight.
But we do need more. No one should ever have power that is unchecked. That includes presidents, be they named Truman (steel seizure case), Nixon (Watergate), Bush (take your pick), or Obama (whose administration continued to prosecute the al-Rabiah case until the judge granted the defendants habeas request).
And that sure as hell should include cops who say things like If you don't put those children back in the car, I'll shoot your husband.
Whatever we do in our politics, we should never lose sight of the idea that in our system of government, we acknowledge that men are not angels, that there must be restraints on their actions, that there must be oversight, and accountability for abuses of power.
That should apply to nations as well, but unfortunately we still have such an excess of military and economic power that the abuses by various administrations in the application of that power are not subject to oversight and accountability from other nations. That makes it even more incumbent upon "We the People of the United States" who are the ultimate sovereign to insist upon it ourselves.
We must be faithful in this in little things as well as big things. If we ignore the little things, we will embolden ever more people to abuse what powers they have.
If we don't, then it will not just be a black family on a rural road in Florida that hears such horrifying words as these:
If you don't put those children back in the car, I'll shoot your husband
Peace