Peace vs Prosecution

I would like to share an LDS scripture with you, but first I want to give some background.

All around, I see people breaking laws or otherwise causing harm to others.  I am not talking about things like theft or speeding (ok, I see tons of speeding, but that is a different matter).  I am talking about things like doctors forcing or cajoling their patients into accepting treatments that are not in their best interest.  I am talking about housing providers ignoring laws requiring them to keep housing suitable for their tenants.  I am also talking about businesses cheating their employees deliberately or due to ignorance.  These things bother me.  I have a policy of social intolerance of bad behavior, but most LDS people seem to think that it is better to sacrifice their freedoms than to do something that could be construed as uncivil or otherwise not getting along with others.  The LDS religion teaches tolerance of the beliefs of others, but many act as if they believe this means they should tolerate harmful or illegal actions against them by others.  If you are LDS, let me correct your thoughts on this.  If you are not, feel free to consider what I am about to present anyway.

The LDS book of scripture called The Doctrine and Covenants (often abbreviated D&C) contains the following verse (D&C 134:11):

We believe that men should appeal to the civil law for redress of all wrongs and grievances, where personal abuse is inflicted or the right of property or character infringed, where such laws exist as will protect the same; but we believe that all men are justified in defending themselves, their friends, and property, and the government, from the unlawful assaults and encroachments of all persons in times of exigency, where immediate appeal cannot be made to the laws, and relief afforded.

Note that the first part says "We believe that men should..."  It does not say "can," "may," or even "are justified in."  It says "should."  This is Church doctrine.  While it is not explicitly worded as a commandment ("thou shalt"), it does use very similar wording ("shalt" and "should" are conjugations of the same root).  Now, I want to be clear here.  This is not just about getting what you are legally entitled to.  It goes much further than this.  If you read the rest of section 134, you will find more Church doctrine stating that members of the LDS Church (well, and everyone else) have a responsibility to uphold the just laws of the land in part by turning in people who break it.  Again, this is not just about getting what you are legally entitled to.  This is about enforcement of the law in general.  If you are mistreated by a doctor, and you choose not to take legal action against that doctor, you are allowing that doctor to mistreat others by your inaction.  If you choose not enforce laws requiring your landlord to keep your home or apartment rental in livable conditions, you are potentially allowing others to come to harm by your inaction.  If you do not report an employer who is cheating you out of overtime pay or who is otherwise cheating or harming you, you are allowing that employer to cheat or harm other employees.  Some of these people who are coming to harm because of your inaction may not even realize that they are being treated in a way that is prohibited by the law.

While I have found no LDS scripture stating this, in my personal opinion, when a person deliberately chooses to allow illegal or harmful behavior to continue, that person becomes complicit in that illegal behavior.  While the law is unlikely to prosecute if the behavior is ever reported by someone else, I believe that God will hold you accountable for harm that happens because you are too lazy or fearful to do your civil duty as stated in the above mentioned scripture.

Here I would like to admit that I am not perfect.  I have been in a few circumstances where I chose not to press charges against a doctor or a landlord, where, according to this scripture, I should have.  In both cases, I did not want to cause contention.  In hindsight, I should have.  That doctor has probably caused emotional harm to multiple patients since then, which I could have prevented.  I feel bad, and justifiably so, that I did nothing to prevent that harm.  Since then, however, I have made some better choices.  Long ago I mentioned this, but I will mention it again.  I once gained knowledge of a labor law violation involving a minor.  Even though I was not directly impacted by the violation, I chose to report it.  The employer was raided by the labor department, and evidence of the violation was found.  Fines were given (I do not know how much, but fines for minor violations can get into the tens of thousands, and the violation occurred multiple times).  That employer will likely never make that mistake again.  I am almost certain the employee who was harmed will never have that happen again with that employer either.  My action may have hurt one employer (who earned the harm), but it saved a lot of innocent employees from harm.  Also, by reporting the violation, I strengthened the law.  If violations of the law are never reported, it is almost as if the law does not exist.  By reporting a violation, I made it clear to those violating the law that they cannot get away with breaking the law without consequences.  A law that is not enforced is worth very little and does almost nothing to protect anyone, but a law that is enforced justly serves its purpose well.  My actions helped a law to be enforced that otherwise would have been useless (in that particular case).


Anyhow, any LDS person who believes that convenience and peace are more valuable than enforcing the law is a hypocrite.  Besides the above scripture, there are many LDS scriptures stating that even killing is justified when it is in defense of yourself, your family, your friends, your property, or your rights and freedoms.  Maybe the U.S. is a sue-happy nation where too many frivolous lawsuits occur.  Choosing not to press charges when lawsuits are justified will not improve the situation, and in fact, this act of giving up your legal rights and protections will actually make it worse for everyone.

Because I am black

Just to be clear, I am not black.  The phrase I reference in the title, "It's because I am black" is a phrase that should never be uttered by any black person trying to gain fair treatment.  This particular post was prompted by at least one incident mentioned by Oprah Winfrey.  Evidently on two occasions, when she was in Europe, she was refused service.  She claims that both of these incidents were examples of racism.  The first was in France, where she entered a store several minutes after it had closed, and the store clerk told her he could not serve her because the store was closed.  The second, in Switzerland, was in a store that sold handbags.  When she displayed interest in a 35,000 Franc (about $38,000US) handbag, the clerk suggested some less expensive options.  Oprah claims that both of these were cases of blatant racism.

The first case was clearly not racist.  No matter how racist the store clerk might have been, I find it extremely unlikely that he (or she...) would have acted any differently for a white person, or even a French white person (the French are notorious for being less than polite to foreigners).   The clerk might have been racist (there is no evidence of this), but his actions certainly were not.

The second case is not quite so clearly not racist, but if you consider the facts, there is a plethora of more reasonable explanations.  The first is that the clerk might do this for all customers.  It is possible that shoppers have left the store without looking back when they discovered the prices of the more expensive items.  Offering lower priced alternatives could be a good marketing strategy for retaining less wealthy customers.  While this is probably more likely than racism, it is still not that likely.  A more reasonable explanation is that Oprah was probably wearing a rather out of date style, and the clerk assumed that this meant she could not afford something more recent.  I can suddenly hear a lot of people becoming indignant, maybe saying, "Oprah would never wear something out of style."  Maybe that is true, but it is essential to consider how fashion evolves.  On average, Europe is about 20 years ahead of the U.S. in fashion (much like Japan is about 20 years behind the U.S.).  Oprah could have been wearing the latest U.S. fashion, and she still would have been 20 years behind in Europe.  If the clerk were not used to serving rich Americans, the she would probably have mistaken Oprah's clothing for thrift store clothing donated by some rich person making closet space.  Now, while I think shopping at thrift stores is wise, even for the rich, I could easily see the clerk take this as a sign of being less than very wealthy.  If she was getting a commission, I could easily see why she would suggest something cheaper to someone wearing apparently cheap clothing.  There are several other possible, non-racist, reasons that the clerk might have offered cheaper alternatives, but racism is about the least likely reason.  (Note that the shop owner claims that the event never happened.  It is possible that Oprah was just making up a story for the occasion.  Rich people seem to do that a lot.)

So, now for the point of this article: Crying racism makes black people (or people of any race) look bad.  Oprah is enforcing a stereotype that black people will cry racism whenever they think it will help them get their way.  Sadly, this bad habit of prominent black people has made it cliché to "play the race card" even when legitimate racism is taking place.  What they don't seem to understand is, this encourages racism.  Many employers are afraid to hire black people, because they fear law suits over racism where none exists.  It sometimes seems to be a lower liability to choose not to hire black people than it is to hire qualified black people at the risk of unfounded racism law suits.  Further, it is rather hypocritical to constantly cry racism when you are trying to get equal rights with everyone else.  Maybe these people think that if they constantly point out their race, everyone will magically forget about race.  A strategy that has seemed to work far more consistently is to forget about race entirely and act like you belong.  I have worked with people of different races before, and the most respected are the ones who act insulted at the insult when people are rude, instead of pretending like every little comment is racist.  These people respect others and first assume that rudeness is unintentional, and when that is not possible, they assume the rudeness is directed at them and not their race.  One benefit of this is that even when someone is being racist, it takes race out of the equation.  This makes rudeness more personal, which is not what racist people typically want.  When people are racist, they are directing their rudeness at a group instead of an individual.  This feels less wrong than directing rudeness at an individual.  When the target of the rudeness ignores any racial element, it makes the rudeness personal, which makes racist people uncomfortable.  In other words, acknowledging racist behavior, whether intentional or not, actually encourages racism, while refusing to acknowledge the racial element discourages it.  (Note that this is true of modern society, but it was not in early America.  This is because targeting rudeness at specific racial groups was more socially acceptable then.  When a large number of people support racist behavior, racist people are less likely to feel guilt when the insult is made more personal.  Now, racist behavior is not as socially acceptable, so turning an insult personal is a far more effective way of discouraging racism.)

This is just one way that many American blacks separate themselves from everyone else (not just whites).  Another one (which I hope Oprah is intelligent enough not to be involved with) is gangs.  Black ghetto kids are taught young that blacks are oppressed.  They are taught that they will never be treated as well as whites.  They learn that they can have "families" that will help them, by joining a gang.  They are essentially making their own culture, and they are rejecting American culture.  The problem is first, they are wrong.  Plenty of black people have gotten out of poverty and even slavery.  Some of the most famous black Americans in history started out as slaves (look up George Washington Carver, who invented peanut-butter and was involved in setting up one of the first learning institutions for black people in the U.S.).  Gangs generate crime, and this crime makes black people look bad.  Yes, it is a stereotype, and stereotypes are not always accurate.  If you think you can convince the majority of people to discard stereotypes though, you are delusional.  The single most effective way to destroy racism is to become a functioning part of society, and to prove the stereotypes wrong (actually, this is more of changing the stereotypes).  For ghetto black kids, this means staying out of crime, graduating from high school, and finding a way to go to college (even if it means scholarships and loans; just make sure to pick a profession that will pay off the loans quickly; consider engineering, we need more engineers anyhow).  For Oprah and other prominent black people this means stop pointing out race every time you feel insulted.  If someone insults you, take it personally, do not blame your race (or better yet, blow the insult off; if blacks were stereotyped as extremely difficult to offend, employers would feel more comfortable hiring black people than white people).  If you want to be treated like everyone else, quit pointing out all of the differences.  There are times when discussions about race are appropriate.  When you have just been insulted in a totally non-racial way is not one of those times.

One other thing: The employees at the stores Oprah mentioned have more right to be insulted than she does.  Racism is a serious thing.  Accusing people of racism without substantial evidence is extremely rude.  Imagine if you refused to do something for someone and they accused you of being a pedophile, a porn addict, or a drug addict.  Racism is somewhere among those in seriousness.  Oprah very seriously insulted these two people, and she is lucky she did not cause an international incident.  Famous people have a responsibility to represent their home country in a good light.  Oprah's rather heinous behavior has reinforced another stereotype, that Americans are rude, unfeeling, egotistical jerks.  Thanks Oprah for making both black people and Americans look bad, all in one shot.

Polygamy

You may have heard about the TV show about a real polygamist family (Sister Wives). My wife has been watching it and I have caught most of it as a result. It is a very interesting perspective, especially considering that polygamy is still widely practised in other parts of the world, though rather differently.

As a Mormon (mainstream Mormons have not practised polygamy for over 100 years), I have a different take on polygamy than most people and a better understanding of the situation than most people. Many polygamists in Utah and nearby states (who use the early doctrines of the LDS Church as justification) do not practice polygamy as it was taught by Joseph Smith (the founder of the LDS Church). The family on the TV show does practice it as taught by Joseph Smith, for the most part.

This family has come out and admitted to practising polygamy. As mentioned on the show, this is extremely unusual for LDS Fundamentalist polygamists. They have said that their intent is to show that not all polygamists are bad (in the last 10 years there have been numerous cases of polygamist families getting in legal trouble for forcing underage marriages, sexual abuse, and many other horrific crimes). From what I have seen, they have done a decent job of showing this. Actually, most polygamists are not bad; misguided maybe, but not bad. (I served a mission in Utah and heard and saw a lot about polygamists living there.)

This family is now under investigation for polygamy. One of the wives had been fired from her job for practising polygamy (is it any wonder that most polygamist families are secretive about it). They took a huge risk to try to show the world that polygamy is not the evil cult that it was thought to be and now they are suffering for it.

I would like to mention here that I do not condone polygamy. It is against the standards of the LDS Church (of which I am a member) and against the law. This is what I would like to discuss.

This family is being investigated because polygamy is illegal. The original reason it was made illegal is that non-LDS men living in primarily LDS communities often had a very difficult time finding a wife. This was partially because the LDS faith recommends against marrying outside of the faith. It was also partially due to the fact that some LDS men had several wives. These non-LDS men blamed the lack of interested women on polygamy and lobbied for it to be made illegal and were eventually successful. The LDS Church outlawed polygamy when the US government outlawed it. (One of the commandments within the LDS Church is to obey the law of the land. Since this and polygamy were conflicting commandments within the Church, it was decided that the commandment to obey local laws was of higher priority and the practice of polygamist marriages was discontinued.)

Now, it is also illegal in the US (at least, in all states that I am aware of) to have sex with anyone that you are not legally married to. Of course, this law has not been enforced for nearly 100 years. This and the law against polygamy (which prohibits being legally married to more than one person) essentially covered all the bases. If you were legally married to multiple people, you were breaking the law, and if you had multiple wives, but were only legally married to one, you were committing adultery, which was also illegal. Now though, since adultery is no longer considered or prosecuted as a crime (though it is generally still illegal), things work differently.

Polygamy is now often prosecuted even if the participants are not legally married. This is, of course, not how the law against polygamy actually works, but our legal system seems to allow judges to make decisions based on personal beliefs, as opposed to codified law.

This family only has one legal marriage: the first. The other marriages were performed by religious ceremony, but no licenses were obtained or sent in. Technically, there is no law against this, but the marriages are not legally binding or recognized. This does not fall under the legal definition of polygamy (it does fall under the legal definition of adultery, but it would be extremely hypocritical to attempt to prosecute for this).

This situation is barely different from one where a married man has three mistresses. It is also very similar to the situation where a male high school student makes a point out of trying to sleep with as many girls as possible. There is only one major difference. This man takes responsibility. He is not hiding his "mistresses"; his wife is totally aware of them (and in most cases recommended them and in all cases approved them; approval of additional wives by the first wife was a requirement of original LDS polygamy). He takes responsibility for the children that have come from these relationships and makes sure that they are being well cared for. He is providing separate living areas for each woman and her children (something mentioned by Joseph Smith when teaching how polygamy was to be practised). And, last but not least, this guy is being accused of moral and legal transgressions.

If we are going to prosecute polygamy, we should also prosecute anyone who has sex with someone they are not married to. By prosecuting this family, but not the high school student, we are saying that irresponsible sex with multiple partners by people who are not even capable of dealing with the consequences (children) is more morally correct than responsible sex with multiple committed partners by people who are capable and prepared to deal with the consequences. We are also saying that secretly committing adultery is more moral than having an open, committed sexual relationship with someone that has been approved for this by our current spouse or spouses, and who we are willing and able to help support and be responsible for.

This is extreme hypocrisy. Our society condemns the man who openly cares for and supports several women, but considers secret uncommitted flings to be a matter of privacy and personal preference. We stand behind a law that was clearly intended as religious discrimination, but ignore laws that were intended to protect people from breaches of contractual commitments. (Adultery is now only considered in divorce cases where a pre-nuptial agreement covers it, even though adultery is legally a breach of the marriage contract.)

While I do not condone polygamy, I do think that if we are not going to start rigorously enforcing laws against adultery and fornication, we should stop prosecuting polygamy, at least, if there is not more than one legal marriage. Otherwise, we are discriminating against religious beliefs. We do not prosecute Catholics who commit adultery, even though it is against their religion and the law. So, why is it that we prosecute against polygamy when it is not against the religion of the polygamists and is technically the same crime as the Catholic committed if there is not more than one legal marriage? Again, the difference being that the polygamist is doing it responsibly and with the consent of his wife.

Lord Rybec

Social Tolerance

Social tolerance is destroying our country and the world. Our country has embraced social tolerance from the beginning. Social tolerance is a very good thing, in moderation. We should tolerate differences of race, religion, political ideals, and many other things. Without these tolerances, we would decay back toward disorder and become less civilized. On the other hand, tolerance of unethical behavior, rudeness, and self destructive behavior do the same thing as intolerance of race, religion, etc... Social tolerance has two sides. One side is things that are barbaric not to tolerate, the other is things that make us barbaric if we do tolerate them.

The importance of social tolerance is often understated. We understand the importance of tolerating things like race and religion so well that this tolerance has been required by law. The true importance of social tolerance is not so much what is tolerated as the fact that social tolerance is more powerful than law in encouraging people to behave themselves. It is against the law to exceed the speed limit on public roads, yet at least 90% of people do it many times a day.  On the other hand, it is entirely legal to stare, but at least 90% of people avoid doing it (in other countries staring is not socially wrong and plenty of people do it, but in the US staring is a social taboo). Social intolerance of unethical behavior is much stronger than laws designating it such. If people ridiculed and disdained speeders, far fewer people would speed. Instead, most people overlook it, or tolerate it, so nearly everyone feels it is permissible.

Another thing about social tolerance that we all seem to miss is that it does not require us to agree with what we are tolerating. We might tolerate other religions without agreeing with what they teach, or we may be friends with people who have different political ideals without agreeing with those ideals. We could even dislike people of a particular race, without treating them poorly. We are entitled to our own opinions, but that does not mean that we cannot tolerate things that we do not agree with.

Just as important as social tolerance is social intolerance. This term is seen as evil in our society, because the only context it is ever used in is cases of discrimination, where intolerance is bad. In reality, a society that tolerates anything and everything is no better than anarchy. In this sort of society, the only thing that keeps people moral is fear of the law. In this sort of society, the moral law is "it is only wrong if you get caught". This is where the US, and most of the world, is headed. We should be able to expect people to be polite to us, we should be able to expect them to clean up after themselves (except in places like restaurants, where they are paying someone else to do it), we should be able to expect them to be truthful, we should be able to expect them to be punctual. In short, we should be able to expect people to be kind, polite, and honest. If someone exhibits bad behavior and we blow it off, they will feel entitled to continue the bad behavior. If we want people to treat us how we would like to be treated, first we should treat them that way and second we should not tolerate being treated otherwise.

You may wonder how to be intolerant of bad behavior. This is important, because we cannot act rudely to people if we want them to be polite. Often the most powerful message we can send someone displaying bad behavior is disappointment. It not only tells them they have done something we disapprove of, but it also tells them we expected them to act better. Disappointment tells people that we care about them enough to expect good behavior from them.

Another very strong way of being intolerant of bad behavior is to look and act like you are uncomfortable. If someone does something unethical or impolite, you can look and act uncomfortable with the situation. While this is not as strong as disappointment, it will usually get the point across. If someone suggests something unethical and the entire room goes silent and everyone else looks uncomfortable with the suggestion, not only will it kill the suggestion, but it will discourage similar suggestions in the future.

If these do not work, you might consider talking to the offending person in private. Tell them that their behavior (the specific one or ones) offends you, or makes you uncomfortable. If they admit that the behavior is wrong, offer to help them correct it. In this case, they may continue the behavior, but as long as they are trying to fix it and are making progress, you should help them. Note that this generally does not work as well as the above two. Many people will become defensive when approached about how they act. This needs to be done carefully. In cases like this, you should take care to be polite and non-confrontational. It also helps to make sure they know you are their friend and are willing to help them with this.

Lastly, if none of these things are working, you should think about ending the relationship with the person (assuming one exists). If a person is continuing harmful behavior (physically, emotionally, or mentally harmful) and has expressed that they have no intention of stopping, ending any relationship with that person will send a clear message. The best way to do this is to let the person know that you would like to continue to be friends with them, but that their behavior is such that you do not feel comfortable being around it. A less effective route is to just stop your communications with the person. In this case, be ready to explain why you are no longer friendly with them, because they will probably ask.

If you cut off a friendship without giving a reason, then your attempt at social intolerance of bad behavior has failed. With any of these techniques, the person must be aware of the reason, otherwise they are unlikely to change their behavior.

There is one more technique that can be used. If you take the responsibility for the behavior, it will generally make the person doing it feel bad about it. If you have a friend with a swearing problem, you might apologize for them when you are around other people who do not swear. If a person leaves a cart in the middle of a parking lot on a windy day (when the cart may cause damage when the wind blows it into someone else's car), you could take the cart and place it in the receptacle. Things like this can have a very strong effect on others, when they see you take responsibility for the consequences of their bad behavior, and may also affect others who see it.

We are all socially responsible for each other's behavior to some degree. If we tolerate unethical or immoral behavior, we are responsible when the behavior continues.

Lord Rybec