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CORRUPTED_REASONING

                                             April   1, 2009
                                       Add:  August 13, 2010
Back in 2009,
Lawrence Lessig was
going through some
verbal contortions,
trying to discuss
"corruption" without
making accusations
(formatting mine):                 http://www.lessig.org/blog/2009/03/and_again_the_point_define_goo.html

  But as I said and said and said, I am
  not accusing anyone of any crime. I'm
  not even accusing anyone of anything
  unethical.  My charge is that by

  (a) introducing legislation that has
  no good public policy justification
  behind it and which

  (b) does not benefit your own
  constituents while

  (c) being disproportionately supported
  in financial contributions by the
  single industry that would benefit
  from the legislation,

  you invite the charge (as 88% of citizens
  in my district believe) that 'money buys         That 88% does not
  results in Congress.'  WHETHER OR NOT            seem like a wacky
  'money bought' this result, you have             bunch of conspiracy
  committed this wrong. The wrong is the           theorists to me.
  relationship, and the suggestion the
  relationship begs. It is not -- and again,          Why wouldn't you join
  NOT -- that the person accused is 'being            them?  It's not a
  paid off' by anyone.                                point in any great
                                                      doubt, is it?
What Lessig is saying here is not difficult
to understand, it's not even particularly
controversial: one is supposed to try to        What is a little
avoid "the appearence of impropriety" when      difficult is why you
one is a "public servant", right?               would be so fanatic
                                                about denying you're
                                                making an "accusation".
                                                I might suggest just
                                                replying "you said it,
                                                not me", in tones
                                                implying you're happy
                                                they said it.

    I would guess Lessig is trying                  LONG_SHOT
    to avoid being labeled an extremist.

    Or perhaps to avoid getting bogged
    down in a legalistic "innocent until
    proven" morass...

        And instead, he gets bogged down in a
        different morass, trying to talk about
        corruption in Congress without *accusing*
        anyone of corruption...

                             The thing is, if you go the other
                             way and really *do* make the
                             accusation, what happens?
                             Paul Krugman recently labeled
                             Senator Ryan "The Flim-Flam Man",
                             and has in consequence recieved
                             endless spew about engaging in
                             "ad hominem arguments" and so on.

                                    You see, when someone repeatedly
                                    gets things wrong that they
                                    really should be able to get
                                    right by now, you're not allowed
                                    to assume that they're doing it
                                    on purpose.  You can't call them
                                    "liars" you're supposed to be
                                    more polite and assume that
                                    they're complete morons.


            There doesn't seem to be any *right* thing
            to say, except of course, to always claim
            that the rich and/or powerful are very
            nice people with your best interest at
            heart, even if they haven't hired you at
            one of their thinktanks yet.




I'm reminded a little of hassles I've had
in trying to talk about voting integrity
issues.  Sometimes I really do mean to say
that I think it's likely a conspiracy was
afoot (the 2004 presidential election for        LAST_EXIT_FOR_DEMOCRACY
example).

    But often I *don't* mean to imply
    that, I don't know or care if there's
    some conspiracy, I just don't like the
    possibility that there might be one
    (if not now, perhaps under similar
    circumstances in the future), and I
    want to see our systems tightened up,
    made more robust.

         That kind of thing really shouldn't
         be so hard to grasp, but it appears
         that it is.  You run up against the
         innocent-until-proven-guilty reflex,
         and get responses like "Do you have
         any *proof* that this happened?"

            But when you're not talking about
            a criminal trial, other standards
            are appropriate besides
            "innocent-until-proven-guilty".
                                                    STANDARDS_OF_PROOF
            In the case of election integrity
            I would argue the burden of proof
            should go the other way: if you         If you want unriggable
            can't prove the election can't be       elections, it's
            rigged, you shouldn't expect            actually fairly easy
            anyone to just take it on faith         to do: use paper
            that it wasn't rigged.                  ballots, watch the
                                                    chain of custody,
   But all of this is too convoluted for most       count the ballots by
   people it seems.  They want to hear a simple,    hand in front of
   straightforward conspiracy theory, so they       witnesses, and be
   can dismiss you as a nut-job without further     willing to wait a few
   ado.                                             days before announcing
                                                    a result.




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