This morning as I logged onto Facebook, I came upon this image. Having followed the Boston marathon and MIT shooting coverage initially, I lost some interest when it came down to the “hunt.” As much as justice matters to me, so does tact and class, and the sensationalism of manhunts always leaves me uncomfortable. I also knew it would be a matter of time before the political rhetoric would change from the victims and wounded to the demographic factors of the suspects—namely race and religion. And alas, it has.
However, what struck me most about this image posted above was the Facebook page it came from, “Too Informed to Vote Republican.” I wondered about this, recalling an old journal article I’d come across when studying anti-Islamic attitudes post 9/11. The paper referenced a correlation between conservatism and low intelligence. Uncertain of its origin, I located a thought-provoking article published in one of psychology’s top journals, Psychological Science, which in essence confirms this.
Hodson and Busseri (2012) found in a correlational study that lower intelligence in childhood is predictive of greater racism in adulthood, with this effect being mediated (partially explained) through conservative ideology. They also found poor abstract reasoning skills were related to homophobic attitudes which was mediated through authoritarianism and low levels of intergroup contact.
What this study and those before it suggest is not necessarily that all liberals are geniuses and all conservatives are ignorant. Rather, it makes conclusions based off of averages of groups. The idea is that for those who lack a cognitive ability to grasp complexities of our world, strict-right wing ideologies may be more appealing. Dr. Brian Nosek explained it for the Huffington Post (link is external)as follows, “ideologies get rid of the messiness and impose a simple solution. So, it may not be surprising that people with less cognitive capacity will be attracted to simplifying ideologies.” For an excellent continuation of this discussion and past studies, please see this article from LiveScience (link is external).
Further, studies have indicated an automatic association between aggression, America, and the news. A study conducted by researchers at Cornell and The Hebrew University (Ferguson & Hassin, 2007) indicated, “American news watchers who were subtly or nonconsciously primed with American cues exhibited greater accessibility of aggression and war constructs in memory, judged an ambiguously aggressive person in a more aggressive and negative manner, and acted in a relatively more aggressive manner toward an experimenter following a mild provocation, compared with news watchers who were not primed” (p. 1642). American “cues” refers to factors such as images of the American flag or words such as “patriot.” Interestingly, this study showed this effect to be independent of political affiliation, but suggested a disturbing notion that America is implicitly associated with aggression for news watchers.
Taken together, what do these studies suggest? Excessive exposure to news coverage could be toxic as is avoidance of open-minded attitudes and ideals. Perhaps turn off the television and pick up a book? Ideally one that exposes you to differing worldviews.
Washington, D.C. — Congress has really outdone itself this time. On Monday, neoconservative Republicans in the Senate were apparently so eager to go to war with Iran that they broke a federal law known as the Logan Act in the process. The Logan Act has been around since 1799 and has remained mostly unchanged, created to keep rogue members of Congress from undermining foreign relations.
How did Senate Republicans violate the Logan Act? Well they did that by being war mongers. But more specifically, when 47 members of Congress signed onto a letter that was sent to Iranian officials in an attempt to undermine the peace deal with Iran, they clearly violated the act — and also all committed felonies. According to Cornell University, the act reads:
“Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.”
And the precedent has already been clearly set. In the case United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp. (1936), Justice Sutherland wrote in the majority opinion:
“The President alone has the power to speak or listen as a representative of the nation. He makes treaties with the advice and consent of the Senate; but he alone negotiates. Into the field of negotiation the Senate cannot intrude, and Congress itself is powerless to invade it.”
The Republicans, who so often talk of the Constitution almost as highly as they talk of their support for Israel, seem to have trampled over the document multiple times in as many weeks. You see, when they invited Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to speak to congress, they were also in violation of the Logan Act then too. John Boehner is mostly at fault for the Netanyahu fiasco, though, so he’s the only member of the House that should go to prison for three years over that.
However, 47 members of the US Senate — all Republicans — have clearly violated the Logan Act, and should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. Three years in prison for 47 members of our war mongering Congress? I would support that. The real question is: will enough Americans stand up and carry out the laws that are written plain as day in the Constitution, or will we simply sit back and expect the government to punish itself?
President Obama, who himself has shown little to no respect for the Constitution, seems to have no interest in prosecuting the war mongering 47, so that’s up to us to carry out. A petition to charge the Senators has already racked up over 40,000 signatures overnight. However, Citizen’s arrest seems to be a more effective plan of action than petitioning. These 47 men committed felonies and should be charged just as any one of us regular folks would be when we commit a crime. Who should we arrest first? John McCain or Lindsey Graham?
