By: Mary Mostert, Analyst, Original Sources (www.originalsources.com)
February 1, 2001
One thing that the debate on John Ashcroft's nomination has clarified is the underlying philosophy of the Democrats. Time after time they have said that a person CANNOT, if they have integrity, uphold the laws of the land if they disagree with them even if they are in offices of trust in which they have sworn to uphold the law of the land. This belongs to the same debate rules we have heard before like: What is the meaning of the word "is" and the word "sex?" If oral sex isn't sex to the Democrats inn the Senate, what, do you suppose, their definition of the word "integrity" really is?
Several Democrat senators have talked about their novel definition of "integrity" in the Ashcroft debate. For example, Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington State said in the floor debate on Tuesday:
Let me turn to the second standard I considered--trust. The Attorney General must be someone the American people can trust to vigorously protect their rights.
Citizens of this country should feel comfortable that the highest law enforcement officer of the land will ensure their basic liberties. Unfortunately, for far too many Americans, Senator Ashcroft's record creates fear, not trust. His appointment sends the wrong message to Americans who already face discrimination and unfair treatment in their daily lives.
Next I want to turn to integrity because Senator Ashcroft is often said to be a man of integrity, and I do not challenge his integrity, but I do ask this: If he is true to his beliefs, how can he vigorously enforce the laws he has vehemently opposed and sought to overturn throughout his public service?
What Sen. Murray is asking here is whether integrity means doing what you say you will do, i.e. honesty. Apparently Sen. Murray is telling us that, in spite of her recent pledge to uphold the laws of the land, she would violate her own sense of "integrity" if she actually upheld a law with which she disagreed. At least, that is exactly what she said her concern was about John Ashcroft. Can a man of "integrity" uphold laws he believes are not good laws?
The bottom line here is the difference between John Ashcroft's, and his supporters' concept of integrity and the Sen. Murray's and Ashcroft's opponents' concept of integrity.
The dictionary defines the word "integrity" as: "soundness and adherence to moral principle and character; uprightness; honesty."
Senator Ashcroft believes integrity would require him to uphold laws, whether he disagrees with them or not, if he swears he will uphold them when taking office as Attorney General. He has shown by his past experience as a Missouri Attorney General that he will do just that.
However, because he upheld laws that Sen. Murray and her group disagree with, she and others on the left will vote against him because he did what he said he would do - uphold the law of the land.
This is the same dilemma I faced back in the 1960s during the great debates over laws that required the public to immediately take shelter when the Civil Defense sirens went off during the era of Atom Bomb alerts. I was active in protesting what I considered outright stupidity to think the precautions of the Civil Defense laws, such as requiring my young children to dive under their desks at school when the alarm sounded, would protect them from a nuclear bomb. However, I always obeyed the law, and told my children to obey the teachers during a Civil Defense drill, while simultaneously arguing publicly that it was just plain stupid to think the children would be saved if the actually were the target of a nuclear bomb. Furthermore, I argued against those who practiced what they called "Civil Disobedience" in protest against Civil Defense drills.
I still believe that Civil Disobedience is a contradiction in terms. There is nothing civil about disobeying laws you disagree with. As I pointed out to Clinton-style hot heads during the Vietnam War, if you get a law changed by deliberately disobeying that law, what's to keep those who disagree with YOUR law from doing the same?
For eight years we have had a man in the White House who would, and did, ignore even such laws as the draft law because he disagreed with it. Using Patty Murray's definition of integrity, ignoring laws you disagree with is integrity. It is a problem that seems to be endemic in among Democrats. It's all part of the problem we've had the last eight years in trying to figure out what we are all talking about. It not only depends on what you mean by the word "sex" and the word "is." It also depends on what you mean by the word "integrity."
Sen. Murray, Sen. Leahy, Sen. Kennedy and others in this lengthy debate about John Ashcroft's ability to enforce, or obey, laws with which he disagrees, tells us a lot about the polarization we are seeing between the left wing of the Democrat party and the rest of us. They are telling you what I have known for a lot of years - to some liberal activists, laws are made to be broken if you happen to disagree with them.
And, frankly, if you don't disagree with some of the laws of the land, you are brain-dead. The whole purpose of political activism is to CHANGE laws that don't make sense. We don't have regular Civil Defense drills anymore in which children, by law, are required at regular intervals to dive under their desks to avoid getting killed by an Atom bomb, although those laws are probably still on the books in some areas.
However, if we ever reach the point in this country that the majority of the population feels justified in ignoring the laws of the land, what we will be experiencing will be anarchy.
John Ashcroft will be confirmed. And he will uphold laws that are on the books. Those who want those laws changed need to petition their members of Congress. It won't do much good, however, to petition George W. Bush's new Attorney General. John Ashcroft will enforce whatever laws the Congress passes. He will do what he says he will do because he believes in the old-fashioned, dictionary definition of integrity, not the definition of integrity put forward in the Senate and in the media by his detractors.
It's going to be a very new experience for many young people in this country who have grown up during the past eight years with Janet Reno as the Attorney General. They are used to an administration that not only did not enforce laws they didn't like, but interpreted laws to mean what they wanted them to mean instead of what the Congress had actually passed.
To comment: mmostert@originalsources.com
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