Do the Right Thing 2

[Update: check out the video link at the very end of this post]

One of my favourite themes concerns "trying to do the right thing" rather than the selfish, easy or safe thing. While recognizing that it's not always easy and that we don't always succeed and that sometimes we are wrong, we can always try to do the right thing. And often it's pretty obvious what the right thing is, I mean, who can possibly be arguing for torture?

Glenn Greenwald has a great post on this theme today chiding Kevin Drum for his "stirring defense of indecision and inaction". I love Glenn's articulate, reasoned indignation. What is it with these Democrats? For crying out loud, stand up for something! Isn't the reason that it's the right thing to do, enough justification to compel action? This time it's easy, safe and in their own interests or as Anonymous Liberal says, they "have the law, the polls, and righteousness on their side".

Read all of Glenn's post, it's a good one, even by his high standards.

Sample:

If the public became convinced as part of the debate that is finally happening that the President broke the law and that such law-breaking is intolerable, does Kevin actually think that it's impossible to find 6 Republican Senators to vote for the Resolution? Congressional Republicans defied Bush on the port deal for only one reason: because public opinion demanded it.

If public opinion begins to move even more than it already has to the view that Bush broke the law, it is far from certain that the Censure Resolution will fail. As I've noted many times, polls showed for two consecutive years that the public thought Watergate was a meaningless scandal and Nixon's popularity remained sky high throughout those years. The arc of that scandal ended up changing only because tenacious politicians and journalists continued to pursue the story and the public finally became educated and angry about it. If Democrats had followed Kevin's advice in 1972, Richard Nixon would have retired as a popular two-term President.

But even if the Censure Resolution ultimately fails, the rationale for pursuing it is self-evident. Kevin frequently frets about (among other things) the fact that Democrats are perceived as being weak. The reason for that is because Democrats often are weak, precisely when they do things like abandon their own Senators and refuse to take a principled stand against a President who got caught breaking the law.

People like Kevin -- who believe that Democrats must "prove" to the country that they can be strong -- should most understand the value in having Democrats take a stand regardless of whether they ultimately prevail. Strong and resolute people fight. Weak and spineless people run away from fights -- or fight only when their victory is guaranteed in advance. The Democrats have been running away from fights for five years now based on the Kevin Drum theory that fights are only worth fighting if you know in advance that you will win. It is beyond irrational to think that the Democrats are going to look strong by simply crawling away meekly and allowing George Bush to break the law.

Digby supports the argument in a point-by-point refutation of "an insider's" five reasons why Dems don't/won't support Feingold's censure motion. Read it here.

I just read a transcript of the original Murrow broadcast (famous now from Good Night and Good Luck) and I found it inspiring. Here's a sample:

Earlier, the Senator asked, "Upon what meat does this, our Caesar, feed?" Had he looked three lines earlier in Shakespeare's Caesar, he would have found this line, which is not altogether inappropriate: "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves."

No one familiar with the history of this country can deny that congressional committees are useful. It is necessary to investigate before legislating, but the line between investigating and persecuting is a very fine one and the junior Senator from Wisconsin has stepped over it repeatedly. His primary achievement has been in confusing the public mind, as between internal and the external threats of Communism. We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men -- not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular.

This is no time for men who oppose Senator McCarthy's methods to keep silent, or for those who approve. We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. There is no way for a citizen of a republic to abdicate his responsibilities. As a nation we have come into our full inheritance at a tender age. We proclaim ourselves, as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom, wherever it continues to exist in the world, but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.

The actions of the junior Senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad, and given considerable comfort to our enemies. And whose fault is that? Not really his. He didn't create this situation of fear; he merely exploited it -- and rather successfully. Cassius was right. "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves."

Good night, and good luck.

Update:

Often, works of fiction can be inspiring too. I love A Man For All Seasons and To Kill a Mockingbird and here is a much more recent and timely one. Take a peek here.