In America, Our Inalienable Right to Vote is in Jeopardy

@RHRealityCheck

The right to vote is an illusion for me: I have been allowed to vote only once in my more than two decades as an emancipated adult. But while I have never been completely at peace with this disenfranchisement, it is the consequence of my personal choice to migrate early and often: my home country, Denmark, extends only limited democratic rights for citizens living abroad.

It is, however, not a choice for the millions of U.S. citizens who will not be allowed to vote in the upcoming presidential election, either because they have been convicted of a felony, or because they are excluded from voting through voting roll purges, strict voter ID laws, or existing or new restrictions on when and how eligible citizens are allowed to vote.

These restrictions on who is allowed to vote and how are based on two erroneous assumptions.

The first and most easily dismissed assumption is that voter fraud is rampant in the United States, requiring stricter regulations on new voter registration, voter ID requirements, and limits on voting hours. This notion is so obviously false that it has been debunked numerous times by independent watchdog organizations and in the mainstream media. Latest figures show that about one in 16,000 registered voters might have a problem, though some issues are neither intentional nor malicious but rather the result of people moving, changing their signature, or misspelling the name of the city in which they live.

Unfortunately, widespread voter fraud is a notion that has traction with those who already believe the United States consists of the deserving and the undeserving. In this way, some commentators conflate welfare recipients, urban residents, and individuals likely to engage in voter fraud. More damningly, non-governmental groups ostensibly working to verify voter registers across the country have seemingly been targeting counties with predominantly minority populations, or low-income communities, using methods that have been discredited by government agencies, such as the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board.  Just this weekend, the New York Times reported that some are so focused on proving fraud that they fabricate the proof. As a result, hundreds of legitimate voters have been purged from registers.

These efforts are usually partisan. The ongoing case in Ohio, in which the state government is seeking to strike down early voting in selected districts and for selected populations, has the possibility of preventing more registered Democrats than Republicans from accessing polls on non-work days.

The second assumption behind the exclusion of voters in the United States is that voting is a privilege and not a human right. International human rights treaties define the equal right and opportunity to vote and to be elected in genuine periodic elections as key to democracy, peace, and human dignity. And while the United States is historically reluctant to sign on to international human rights obligations, the U.S. Senate accepted the ongoing obligation to implement the right to vote as defined in international law in 1992.

To be sure, some will say that the millions of convicted felons who are excluded from voting for life have brought it upon themselves and do not deserve to participate in democracy. No amount of data showing the disproportionate (and perhaps intentional) impact of this policy on communities of color will convince this group that those convicted of crimes should not be excluded from voting. The notion that voting as a human right means there can be no distinction between the deserving and the undeserving will also not have any impact: people who believe that those convicted of felonies should lose all rights for life do not believe in human rights at all.

So far, politicians have assumed they have support for voter ID laws because some three-quarters of the U.S. population poll in favor of these laws. However, the same polls show an almost equal concern among the population that legitimate voters will be excluded from the polls in November. The difference between these two concerns is that the latter is real and the former is largely fabricated, as is the worry that those convicted of felonies are undeserving of the right to vote.

More to the point, ensuring the right to vote should not be based on polling data. The U.S. government—including both the executive and the legislative branches—has the obligation to ensure that the right to vote is more than an illusion for all U.S. citizens, regardless of their ethnicity, home, or history of conflict with the law.

Spanking Your Child: The World Disagrees

@RHRealitycheck

Opinion pieces for and against corporal punishment of children cycle around with tremendous regularity. Most are based on absolutely no data, and merely offer some variation on the theme of “I was (or I wasn’t) spanked as a child, and look how well I turned out.”

Many articles inexplicably extrapolate from these hyper-personal narratives to conclude not only that “what’s good enough for me is good enough for my children,” but moreover that whatever the other camp is proposing (to spank or not to spank) is inherently bad for the child with no reference to statistics or science. Most recently, a proponent of spanking argued that not to spank your child teaches her or him that “if life isn’t fair, then throw a fit and you’ll eventually get your way.”

Full disclosure: my parents did not hit or spank me and I have never thought it necessary, desirable, or expedient to hit or spank my child. I know for a fact that she is absolutely clear that throwing a fit won’t get her anywhere. And I also know for a fact that these personal experiences cannot be translated into a theory of child psychology for larger gain.

Instead, let me try to overcome some of the dearth of information on this topic, from the perspective of desired objectives and actual outcomes.

First of all, it might come as a surprise for readers in the United States that many countries have outlawed all forms of corporal punishment of children, including spanking, slapping, other forms of hitting, as well as kicking and shaking. Countries with full bans on corporal punishment include Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, and Sweden, as well as Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Poland, South Sudan, and Ukraine. (For a full list, see here).

Sweden was the first country to pass a ban on corporal punishment in 1979, and quite aside from impressive child health and education indicators, it is clear that the country has not descended into anarchy as a result of this “lack of discipline.” It is noteworthy that Sweden’s standard of living has been described by economists as “enviable,” fuelled by a “skilled labor force” (including a substantial number of workers born after the absolute spanking ban). Moreover, the economic downturn that is engulfing all of Europe is projected to be relatively short-lived in Sweden. In other words: either it pays off to be throwing fits, or else the ban on spanking does not really produce lazy, fit-throwing adults after all.

To be clear, I am not suggesting that there is any direct causal link between bans on corporal punishment and a country’s economy. I am, however, suggesting that hitting children (whatever you choose to call it) is not something most people agree with. And not because I wasn’t spanked myself. Rather, every single country in the world except for the United States and Somalia, have agreed that spanking is wrong, at least in principle, through ratifying the universal treaty on children’s human rights, the Convention on the Rights of Child. (South Sudan also has not ratified this treaty, but banned corporal punishment of children in 2011).  

In other words, the vast majority of the world’s seven billion individuals live in countries that have, in principle, signed and ratified commitments to end violence against children in all its form, including corporal punishment in the home.

To be sure, the fact that governments from all over the world have come together to declare that spanking must stop is not going to convince those who believe in spanking as an effective method of discipline that, in fact, it is not. 

To this there is only one thing to say: they are wrong. 

It is a generally accepted notion that positive reinforcement brings about more lasting behavioral change than punishment both when it comes to animals and when it comes to people. A recent article in The Atlantic notes that theories on how to modify behavior through positive reinforcement form the backbone of successful programs such as Weight Watchers and AA, and provide the underlying structure of newer behavior modification applications for smart phones and computers. 

Indeed, observing children around me, it seems likely that what might produce “lazy fit-throwing” adults is not lack of corporal punishment but rather lack of clarity with regard to what constitutes acceptable behaviour in the first place. There are any number of ways to communicate this clarity, and violence—including spanking—is not one of them. Consistent quality education at home and at school would be a better place to start. 

Video Restrictions in India and the Growing Effort by Governments to Restrict Our Rights to Freedom of Information

@RHRealityCheck

This week, several video-sharing websites were blocked by the two main internet service providers in India in response to a court order related to movie piracy. The company that had pushed for the court intervention said it hadn’t intended such a blanket block. The internet service providers said they merely did as told. The internet activist group Anonymous said it would shut down the website of the Indian Supreme Court in retaliation.

Meanwhile, over 3 million individuals had their right to exchange information and ideas summarily suspended.

India is not the only modern democracy where government institutions are pushing (and are being pushed) to facilitate blanket restrictions on internet use and flow of information to the detriment of human rights. In January this year, the US Congress considered bills that would have encouraged internet service providers to pre-emptively block sites that may be used by some individuals to share pirated content, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act (PIPA). And the European Union is currently debating whether to sign onto an international treaty containing similar provisions: the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).

These developments are worrying. 

From a human rights perspective, blanket restrictions on specific means of communication should always raise red flags. On the most basic level, human rights guarantee the conditions we need to live with dignity. For centuries, philosophers have agreed that this includes the time and space for each and every one of us to develop, express, and share our unique beliefs and thoughts in peace, even if what we believe or think is offensive to others. When human rights were codified into law after the World War II, this notion was captured in very broad protections of the rights to freedom of expression and information.

Human rights law is particularly strict with regard to the limitations a government can legally impose on the exchange of information and opinions. This can only happen for certain specific purposes and only in the least restrictive manner possible. It is hard to imagine a situation where blanket restrictions on the exchange of information would constitute the “least restrictive manner” for the government to fulfil the purpose of the restriction, whatever this might be.

Of course, the purpose of many blanket restrictions on internet sites — including the stated purpose of the blocking of sites in India this week — is the protection of copyright. It is not only reasonable for governments to seek to protect these interests, it is, in fact, their job. Just as we have the right to freedom of expression, we have the right to government protection of our intellectual property. 

What we do not have the right to is the protection of our intellectual or other property at the expense of someone else’s right to freedom of expression. We wouldn’t, for example, want a government to impose a general curfew (violating freedom of movement for everyone) in order to prevent drunk driving, street crime, or other criminal behavior rightly or wrongly associated with the night time.  Yet this is precisely what blanket interventions of internet activity tend to do. Instead of the government imposing fines and blocking specific pirated content after fair and transparent judicial processes, internet service providers are pushed to pre-emptively block entire websites as soon as individual users of these websites are accused of violating copyrights. 

Some governments claim this is the only way to protect copyright where the internet is concerned. And it is certainly true that the more fluid and fast exchange of information that has come with the spread of the internet makes regulation more challenging. 

It is also true, however, that while the means of communication have changed over the years, our need, desire, and — yes — right to communicate freely has not. This is why the United Nations expert body charged with translating general human rights standards into concrete guidelines for implementation issued a statement last year spelling out the specifics of the right to freedom of expression in the age of the internet. This document is clear: generic bans on the operation of certain sites and systems are not allowed, whether these bans are imposed directly or through giving internet service providers strong incentives to take sites down. 

Sure, it is easier to do what the Indian internet service providers did this week, and what the supporters of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement want to facilitate as a global standard: just block everyone from using sites that may or may not peddle pirated content. However, governments are not obliged to do that which is easier. Governments are obliged to protect our human rights. And that means targeting wrongdoers rather than facilitating or indeed imposing censorship in a blanket manner.

Are All Blacks Prejudiced Against All Gays? Beyond the Static View of Race, Sexual Orientation, and Otherness

@RHRealitycheck

President Obama’s support for marriage equality came just one day after North Carolina voters banned same-sex marriage. Twitter storms followed each development, in which tweeters first declared that black people were homophobic as a group, then just as sweepingly that they were not. Somehow, the North Carolina defeat for marriage equality was seen as proof that all blacks hate all gays, whereas President Obama’s support was proof of the opposite.

This overgeneralization is somewhat similar to some of the commentary in the wake of the Trayvon Martin tragedy. We heard that “black violence” was somehow worse and more endemic than violence committed by non-black perpetrators. This idea was also the organizing principle behind the blog-post that got John Derbyshire fired from the National Review for advising his children to avoid contact with black people who are, Derbyshire argued, statistically more likely to be arbitrarily violent, especially toward whites.

It is not hard to see the racist undertones of all of these arguments, down to the very notion that everyone of a certain “race” has personal character traits that are inescapably and intrinsically linked to their skin color. It is also not hard to find information to disprove them: many blacks in North Carolina opposed the constitutional same-sex marriage ban.   And Justice Department statistics show that most violence is carried out within racial homogeneous communities, so that, for example, black-on-white homicides are a rare exception rather than the rule.

There are, of course, good reasons to pool and parse statistical information about any population using group criteria that may illustrate unequal policy outcomes for individuals associated with those groups. In fact, we expect governments to collect and separate statistics with a view to analysing policy effectiveness and equal access to benefits, rights, and care. Generalizations about groups can also be helpful in visualizing the underlying reasons for inequality and devising strategies to overcome it.

However, problems arise when our only understanding and interactions with specific people result in our treating them as part of a group and not as individuals. Whatever else may be true about George Zimmerman’s interaction with Trayvon Martin, it is clear from his phone comments to the police dispatcher that he had preconceived notions about Martin’s "dangerousness" even before he got out of the car — preconceptions that therefore only could be based on Martin’s appearance, including his sex, age, color, and apparel, and most likely the combination of all of them.

The corollary of this notion is that one way to overcome racism and homophobia and other “group-isms” is for people to relate to each other as individuals. While it is true that some people are able to reconcile a generalized negative feeling about certain groups (“all blacks are violent”) while nurturing positive sentiments about individuals from that group (“some of my best friends are black”), it is also true that most people start seeing a group differently when they know and love someone who belongs to it. A generally homophobic parent with a gay child may not feel compelled to campaign for marriage equality any more than they did before their child was “out.” However, most will at least start questioning negative portrayals of “all gays” in the media. This is why Derbyshire’s advice to his children to actively avoid contact with blacks is so insidious: it pushes a false notion of otherness that is purposefully static.

Even more serious problems arise when policies that should be informed by data and statistics instead are influenced by such Derbyshire-style perceptions of static and false otherness. The racial profiling of stop-and-frisk practices is one blatant example. Along those lines, Michelle Alexander has amassed examples of situations where police departments target predominantly black communities for aggressive interventions and arrests for drug-related crimes, even where data shows that in that specific state or city, the main users or sellers of drugs are not black. Many of the arguments voiced against marriage equality are equally based on false ideas that all gay people are promiscuous, sexually predatory, or bad parents.

And perhaps this is where the real issue lies. It is almost instinctual for us to organize information about the world around us based on visual cues and personal experiences. And it is equally human to use these cues and experiences to generate assumptions about what might happen and what we should do about it. It is when we confuse trends or, worse, preconceptions with reality that abuse, inequality, and discrimination can take hold.

More disturbingly, negative generalizations about what everyone in a given group wants, thinks, and does help to justify those who actually do. When we portray all black people as homophobic we exonerate individuals of color who feel prejudiced against gays. They are not responsible for their beliefs—their skin color made them do it.

I would not wish to be called homophobic just because quite of lot of individuals who happen to be white make anti-gay remarks. Even less would I want these individuals to be able to brush off their anti-gay sentiments as a natural part of their “whiteness.” Prejudice is prejudice, wherever it comes from and whatever form it takes. Respect dictates we treat it as such.

Deserving vs. Undeserving? Everyone "Deserves" Human Rights

@RHRealityCheck

Most of the issues highlighted during this year’s run-up to the US presidential election are framed in terms of separating the deserving from the undeserving. Abortion for rape victims, but not those who want to have sex. Immigration for the politically persecuted, but not those who move across borders because they need to find a job. Marriage benefits for those who have sex with the right people in the right way.

This debate misses the point in two key ways.

At the most basic level, the issues at hand are basic human rights and not dependent on who "deserves" what: we have a right to access to abortion, health care, work, and freedom and movement because we are humans, not because we deserve it.

But also as a political process, it is ineffectual to focus policy debates on whether or not specific people deserve the services and public goods they clearly need.

I was reminded of this the other day as I was boarding a plane and the flight attendant asked me about the meaning of my t-shirt which read: “Immigration is the sincerest form of flattery.”

"But does that mean you are for it or against it, though,” he asked. I was stumped for words.

Immigration is a reality, just like so many other issues people insist on declaring themselves “for” or “against.” Abortion, adolescent pregnancy, sex outside marriage, sex work, identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or intersex… the list could go on.

None of these issues is fringe. One in three women in the United States will have an abortion by the age of 45. Every year, 750,000 girls between the age of 15 and 19 get pregnant in the United States. Ninety-five percent of all Americans have sex before they get married (or have sex and may never get married). While it is difficult to estimate the number of sex workers, the National Task Force on Prostitution estimates that over one million people in the United States have worked as sex workers. And a 2011 study shows that almost 9 million adults identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual,transgender, or intersex, i.e. about 4 percent of the US population. As for immigration, very few people in the United States do not trace their ancestry—even their recent ancestry—to immigration.

But more to the point, none of these issues will change through declaring them good or bad. The focus for a policy maker should be how to generate policies that most effectively guarantee the maximum level of welfare and human rights-enjoyment for everyone. And from that perspective, whether someone is “deserving” or not is irrelevant.

Abortion and adolescent pregnancy numbers depend on access to comprehensive sex education and contraception. Choices about sex work and immigration to a large extent depend on available work and whether individuals are able to provide for themselves and their families in any other way. And those who believe they can change someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity just by saying they “don’t believe in homosexuality” are more delusional than most. Even those who make a career out of not believing in homosexuality can’t change their own (completely legitimate) sexual orientation.

There is, of course, an enormous difference between the issues high-lighted here: some are medical procedures, some life experiences, some innate traits. However that may be public policy on health, sexuality, immigration, and employment should not be designed to punish us for being who we are or for doing what we feel we need to do, but rather make sure everyone is equally empowered to make the best choices for themselves.