I recently came across a statement made by prominent environmental activist Tim DeChristopher, who was sentenced last Tuesday for having disrupted a land auction by the Bureau of Land Management back in 2008 (you can read some brief details here).
His statement – made the day of his sentencing before the judge and court (no jury was present) – is one of the most interesting political and philosophical messages I’ve read in a while. It’s also quite long, but I highly encourage you all to read it and reflect on the proclamations that are made.It’s definitely impactful for anyone with an appreciation to justice, environmentalism, and civil activism (the entirety of it can be found here). It’s certainly led me to reflect on a lot of my own concerns about social justice, government, and the role of virtue in politics.
I’ll highlight some of the parts that stood out the most for me, starting with a powerful account from his own experiences that I feel represents a major problem with this country today.
As the government’s memorandum points out, I have also made public statements about the value of civil disobedience in bringing the rule of law closer to our shared sense of justice. In fact, I have openly and explicitly called for nonviolent civil disobedience against mountaintop removal coal mining in my home state of West Virginia. Mountaintop removal is itself an illegal activity, which has always been in violation of the Clean Water Act, and it is an illegal activity that kills people. A West Virginia state investigation found that Massey Energy had been cited with 62,923 violations of the law in the ten years preceding the disaster that killed 29 people last year. The investigation also revealed that Massey paid for almost none of those violations because the company provided millions of dollars worth of campaign contributions that elected most of the appeals court judges in the state. When I was growing up in West Virginia, my mother was one of many who pursued every legal avenue for making the coal industry follow the law. She commented at hearings, wrote petitions and filed lawsuits, and many have continued to do ever since, to no avail. I actually have great respect for the rule of law, because I see what happens when it doesn’t exist, as is the case with the fossil fuel industry. Those crimes committed by Massey Energy led not only to the deaths of their own workers, but to the deaths of countless local residents, such as Joshua McCormick, who died of kidney cancer at age 22 because he was unlucky enough to live downstream from a coal mine. When a corrupted government is no longer willing to uphold the rule of law, I advocate that citizens step up to that responsibility.
Indeed, it’s pretty much become an axiom of our political system that money buys everything: laws, politicians, and power. You don’t have to be a far-leftist or conspiracy theorist to notice the perverse amount of influence that well-monied and big business interests have on our legislation and policies. Nowadays, elections even at state and local levels are prohibitively expensive, limiting public office to those who have the considerable wealth to fund their own campaigns, or those willing to take money from a slew of interests, most often big companies. None of this stops at the end of an election: during the course of government, all kinds of forces influence policy proposals and legislative debates, mostly through lobbying efforts as well as indirect means (many prominent politicians and businessmen are acquainted with one another, for example).
Granted, not all of this weight is led by nefarious corporations, nor does it always hold such undue sway. But by and large, major business interests due tend to have a lot of power over the shaping of laws and regulations (to say nothing of public opinion, through the funding of ads and “advocacy” groups). The disproportionate influence of certain elite segments of society is nothing new to democratic nations, and is as old as the institution of democracy itself: even the ancient Greeks had to contend with it.
The difference, however, is that the United States has far more wealthy and powerful private interest than any other nation, and it’s political culture means we’re less inclined to crackdown on the issue lest we infringe on their freedoms to do so (indeed, the landmark Supreme Court case, Citizens United v. the FCC, struck down prohibitions against corporations, unions, and non-profits financing campaign advertisements, largely on the notion that the first amendment applies to entities as much as persons).
Some would argue that such a system is a small price to pay for the benefits it creates, namely innovative dynamism, economic growth, and job creation (all of which are the consequence of giving companies relatively greater freedom). However, as with many policies, there needs to be a balance between costs and benefits – giving companies a freer hand may lead to a booming economy on paper, but the possible costs to society and the environment may render such “advantages” a Faustian bargain. Furthermore, there is more to the well-being of a community than raw economic growth. As DeChristopher notes later on in his statement, it is states like West Virginia, abundant in natural resources, that suffer the most in terms of low education rates, high levels of poverty, and lower standards of living, for reasons that make sense upon closer inspection:
As a native of West Virginia, I have seen from a young age that the exploitation of fossil fuels has always gone hand in hand with the exploitation of local people. In West Virginia, we’ve been extracting coal longer than anyone else. And after 150 years of making other people rich, West Virginia is almost dead last among the states in per-capita income, education rates and life expectancy. And it’s not an anomaly. The areas with the richest fossil fuel resources, whether coal in West Virginia and Kentucky, or oil in Louisiana and Mississippi, are the areas with the lowest standards of living. In part, this is a necessity of the industry. The only way to convince someone to blow up their backyard or poison their water is to make sure they are so desperate that they have no other option. But it is also the nature of the economic model. Since fossil fuels are a limited resources, whoever controls access to that resource in the beginning gets to set all the terms. They set the terms for their workers, for the local communities, and apparently even for the regulatory agencies. A renewable energy economy is a threat to that model.
We see this on the international level of analysis as well. States which are highly dependent upon a single commodity, such as oil, are often the poorest and most corrupt. Very few of them have effective institutions, a strong rule of law, or democratic governments. There is entrenched collusion between the state, businesses, and well-connected elites, all of which become concerned with looking after one another rather then serving their specific functions. In many cases, they become one in the same, with officials and company-men bleeding over to one another’s institutions. While such a system is not as blatantly pervasive in the US, there is no doubt that it occurs, especially in states where government institutions are weak and there is a strong dislike of regulation and “economic meddling,” giving the upper-hand to private interests and their public-sector allies.
This is really the heart of what this case is about. The rule of law is dependent upon a government that is willing to abide by the law. Disrespect for the rule of law begins when the government believes itself and its corporate sponsors to be above the law.
This is probably one of the more powerful pronouncements that he makes, in my opinion. What good is the law if it doesn’t represent the best interests of the public it’s supposed to protect? What good our are politicians if they, too, don’t represent the interests of the very electorate that votes them in, and whom they’re supposed to serve? Government is for the people and by the people, a classic relationship that is supposed to be at the heart of our nation’s founding values. When a small segment of society can came to supersede the interests of the bulk of society and shape government to it’s own benefit, it erodes the entire democratic process. What is worse, it corrodes the trust between state and citizen, leading to the widespread cynicism, apathy, and hostility towards government that has become the norm in our society.
The decision you are making today, your honor, is what segment of the public you are meant to protect. Mr Huber clearly has cast his lot with that segment who wishes to preserve the status quo. But the majority of the public is exploited by the status quo far more than they are benefited by it. The young are the most obvious group who is exploited and condemned to an ugly future by letting the fossil fuel industry call the shots. There is an overwhelming amount of scientific research, some of which you received as part of our proffer on the necessity defense, that reveals the catastrophic consequences which the young will have to deal with over the coming decades.
Unfortunately, it’s usually the coming generations that are preemptively disaffected by the myopic and selfish interests of the present day society. True, we cannot entirely account for and accommodate the millions that are still coming of age or yet to be born. But much of our existence as a species, as well as a society, is about preserving our socio-political system and planet for the long-term viability of our kin and community. People living in the present, and hoping to reap lucrative short-term gains, often have very little concern for the future they aren’t going to be part of anyway. Such individuals could normally be left to their own devices were it not for the considerable power that they have over how our resources our managed, our society is governed, and our environment is treated. The fact that a small segments of society could hold such influence is concerning enough, without that influence being utilized in a manner that can be potentially destructive to their fellow humans.
If the government is going to refuse to step up to that responsibility to defend a livable future, I believe that creates a moral imperative for me and other citizens. My future, and the future of everyone I care about, is being traded for short term profits. I take that very personally. Until our leaders take seriously their responsibility to pass on a healthy and just world to the next generation, I will continue this fight.
I strongly agree with this sentiment, which I should clarify, upon reading it in full context, is referring to a non-violent struggle. As a political science major and someone with a great interest in government, I’ve long believed, perhaps naively, in the idea of political institutions affecting social justice, protecting the interests of the public, and enforcing the just rule of law. I still largely prescribe to the values of civic participation and the engagement between citizens and the state, but I’ve come to learn that government is more corruptible and weak-willed than it should be, even accounting for human weaknesses. It’s important to be involved in politics, to critical scrutinize the political class and it’s dealings, and to exercise our rights – through voting, petitioning, and corresponding – to influence government.
But given government’s limitations, even when it has the best of intentions, we must also seek to apply alternative means to promoting policy and social changes – advocacy; peaceful protest; volunteering for, and organizing around, humanitarian causes; and simply proliferating our ideas, philosophies, and information. A flawed democracy is still democratic, and whatever our diminished capacity to influence government, we should never rule out our ability to instill a paradigm in political and grassroots activity. Such slim chances are better than, which would be the case if we take such action in the first place. DeChristopher takes all this a step further and promotes civil disobedience, as he strongly alluded to in the previous excerpt.
The reality is not that I lack respect for the law; it’s that I have greater respect for justice. Where there is a conflict between the law and the higher moral code that we all share, my loyalty is to that higher moral code. I know Mr Huber disagrees with me on this. He wrote that “The rule of law is the bedrock of our civilized society, not acts of ‘civil disobedience’ committed in the name of the cause of the day.” That’s an especially ironic statement when he is representing the United States of America, a place where the rule of law was created through acts of civil disobedience. Since those bedrock acts of civil disobedience by our founding fathers, the rule of law in this country has continued to grow closer to our shared higher moral code through the civil disobedience that drew attention to legalized injustice. The authority of the government exists to the degree that the rule of law reflects the higher moral code of the citizens, and throughout American history, it has been civil disobedience that has bound them together.
I frankly don’t know if I have the gumption to pursue civil disobedience, truth be told. I find that what is legal and what is perceived to be right is often a matter of subjectivity to many people (not that I advocate a relativistic notion of morality or ethics by any means). Justified civil disobedience for one individual is simply breaking the law to for another; a law we may consider unjust is still a law. How we separate what is truly just from what is the product of self-interested political influence is an exercise in legal philosophy that is best left for another post. The point would be that there are some laws which can clearly be traced to the sway of private interests on the functions of government, and that such laws harm the public good. But how we define the public good is yet another matter of contentious debate.
More generally, the question of whether civil disobedience is good for the public is a matter of perspective. Civil disobedience is inherently an attempt at change. Those in power, whom Mr Huber [the prosecutor] represents, are those for whom the status quo is working, so they always see civil disobedience as a bad thing.
Indeed, yet many who comprise the public may share similar sentiments. Hence why I’m still undecided on the matter of utilizing civil disobedience.
Ultimately, I still abide by what my more proactive cohorts would likely consider to be a lazy methodology: to influence and educate the public so that it, in turn, affects political and societal paradigms. I remain convinced that people need to be imparted with the values of discourse, open-mindedness, and the vigorous pursuit of truth and justice in order change the society they live in. Many of us our divided, ignorant, partisan, and distracted, and in such a state of being none of us can properly address the various injustices that are often pervasive in our political, economic, and legal systems. Even the well-informed and well-meaning among us our constrained by our limitations in experience and exposure to knowledge – thus we must be receptive to one another’s perspectives and seek to converge upon an agreed upon, reason-based foundation for moral and legal justice.
Our system may be flawed and co-opted, but it is far from lost. We still live in a free enough society to make a difference. We still have access to the means and tools with which we can coordinated, organize, work together, and exchange ideas. There are still political venues to be pursued, however cynical the prospect of politically-based change may seem. Most importantly, more and more us are less divided and parochial than we give ourselves credit for. I have the impression that our generation is more savvy, practical, and well-meaning than we and our preceding generations realize. As long as we let ourselves get caught up on all manner of other things, leaving politics and social issues to fallow, we’ll just be facilitating the flawed system and perverse machinations that our disenfranchising us and our planet.
As Mr. DeChristopher stated, I just want you all to join in me in trying to make our society great, now and into the future.
Sarvodaya 
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