Category: Governance

Dear Officer Wilson

I saw clips of your interview with George Stephanopoulos and couldn’t help but be stunned by your certainty. You took a human life and you are apparently totally certain you acted rightly? Could it be that your moral compass is so narrow it doesn’t allow for doubt? There’s something about taking a human life and not questioning it that is very distressing. Often, that is what makes a criminal different from someone else. Being a police officer may familiarize someone with firearms, but in and itself does not restrict the use of that person’s conscience. I do wonder if you had handled the whole episode of the shooting as well as its aftermath with more humility—and I’m not even suggesting remorse or contrition, just humility—if the Ferguson Police Department and the DA had also handled the whole matter with more humility, meaning with some acknowledgment of doubt, if the reaction would have been as violent as it has been? It seems to me that wisdom would point to anyone in your position having some qualms, questions, regrets about taking a human life, no matter how justified the taking of that life might have been. Since there was none coming from you, I ask myself if what within yourself prompted you to shoot, or even to feel threatened, does not come from an equal lack of wisdom? That is why it is so hard to trust the verdict, or even what you say, for perhaps you are saying that you acted rightly in order to defend your action more than to describe what happened. You say you have a clear conscience, is that what you truly believe? As it stands your position and that of Ferguson’s police Department and DA have fueled anger, distrust and destruction. Naively or not, I do believe some acknowledgement of doubt, some show of humility, would have cast the whole shooting in a different light and at the very least lessened the violence. The Grand Jury did not charge you, essentially saying you are not guilty. But morally, and certainly spiritually, it’s a whole different answer.

Innovation or Exploitation?

Three Italian entrepreneurs think they have the answer to finding a parking place on a busy city street, something all of us know is hard to find. They developed an app that allows the person who occupies the space and is about to vacate it to signal that to other motorists who then bid on it. In essence the app allows the holder of a public parking space on a public street to sell it to whoever bids the highest. Not surprisingly some cities are fighting back. A few months ago San Francisco’s city attorney issued a cease and desist order to these apps. His basis was a police code that prohibits the buying, selling or leasing of public street parking spaces. The entrepreneurs’ next targets are Beverly Hills and Santa Monica, although their city councils have voted to ban the exchange of a public parking space for any form of compensation. And in Los Angeles, although the app is not yet available, the city council has preempted it by outlawing it. Obviously in any number of cities parking is a problem that requires solutions. What struck me about these apps was not they were attempting to solve a problem, but how. I find them opportunistic and exploitative. The idea of selling space that does not actually belong to the seller, that in fact belongs to the public, sounds nothing short of chutzpah. But there’s a larger issue here, of the use of technology. These apps remind us that just because something is possible, does not make it constructive, useful or desirable. As I understand their use, such apps do not serve the cause of innovation nor do they advance progress. But they do send us a signal: In a culture where freedom of thought is paramount, the onus falls on us to learn to reject such negative applications of technology.

Hope After All

I just read about the consolidation of hospitals and medical practices, placing health care in fewer hands. Of course Comcast is set to take over Time Warner Cable, and we hear a lot about Amazon getting too big and throwing its weight around. Housing prices are above what the average earner can afford; it is becoming harder for average workers to qualify for loans or save for a down payment, so many houses that might otherwise be bought by those aspiring to be middle class now go to a variety of entrepreneurs and speculators who can afford them and do with them what they will. In politics money is more and more at the center of campaigns, and that in great part fueled by recent Supreme Court decisions. It seems that in any number of fields, we keep moving into perilous territory, one where only those at the top of the economic ladder can prosper. Here and there, there are signs the trend is being noticed, but too often talk of remedies centers around hot button issues like the 1% or the agenda of the extremes of the political parties mouthing whatever they think will gain attention. Politicians speak of helping the middle class, although helping the middle class may not be possible without addressing the concentration of financial power. Just as I was feeling no one was addressing the problem as a whole, I read an article about capitalism being in crisis and talking about the new buzzword “inclusion.” In the world’s convention centers and auditoriums where bankers and politicians gathers, inclusion refers to what Western industrialized nations seem to be losing, the ability to allow as many as possible to benefit economically as well as participate in political life.

Looks like there’s hope after all.