Monday, April 13, 2009

Glenn Beck on Harold Koh: Idiocy of the First Degree

Harold Koh is a respected legal theorist. He served as an Assistant Secretary of State under Bill Clinton and was Dean of the Yale Law School. Recently, he has been nominated by President Obama to serve as State Department Legal Adviser, the highest legal position in the State Department. Certain elements of the right have decided that Koh is unacceptable. There are various ludicrous claims circulating, including that he wants to implement Sharia. Glenn Beck had this to say:









There’s so much wrong with this statement that I don’t know where to begin. Beck apparently thinks that the notion that law change over time dates to “the 1920s” in response to “Darwinian evolution.” I can’t tell if this is some sort of garbled critique of judicial activism since Beck doesn’t seem to object only to changes brought by a judiciary but all changes, even those coming from the legislature.

In any event, Beck, here is a quick history lesson: Most legal systems rely on systems of precedent and as, the precedents change, the controlling law changes. This isn’t new at all. One sees this in the Talmud. The basic system of Common Law used in Great Britain and the United States dates back to the Middle Ages, hundreds of years before Darwin. As much as the religious right likes to blame everything on evolution, this has nothing to do with that.

I’m also puzzled by Beck’s statement at another level: Even if we grant him his bizarrely counterfactual claim about the nature of law, does that mean he would rather we have all laws stay as they were in the 1920s? Should we keep anti-miscegenation laws? Should we have no regulations to govern new technologies such as the internet and airplanes?

Jay Sekulow does not come across very well in this segment either. He gives a more measured, somewhat rational critique of Koh. However when Beck asks Sekulow whether Beck is correct, Sekulow says “yes” and then gives his measured statement. I’d have a lot more respect for Sekulow if he had said “no” and then made the same statement.

Beck’s ignorance is made all the more glaring by the fact that he then calls for the firing of people at the New York Times for not, in his opinion, having sufficient understanding of what “transnationalism” means. The arrogance here is so stunning that I’m forced to conclude that this is an example of the Dunning-Kruger effect in action.

I’ve interacted with Koh in the past and he’s clearly a very bright guy; I know personally Dean Koh and his family. He was a trustee of the high school I attended. My twin brother Aaron has been his student at the Yale Law School and is now his research assistant. Thus, it annoys me that this idiot Beck would be given a show on a major news channel to spout such garbage. There is a bright side to this: any sane person can look at what Beck and his allies are saying about Koh. If this is the worst they can come up with, then it makes it all the more clear that Koh is the right man for the job.

8 comments:

Metro said...

As far as I can tell, Beck's ramping up teh foaming crazy to protect his share of the shrinking right-wing nutjob market.

Last week or two he was on about the G20 meeting being the "New World Order" come to fruition.

CondorMan said...

The criticism of Obama and Koh by Glen Beck is not based on their intelligence or their previous jobs. It is simoly based on their position on the issue of transnationalism as it relates to matters of national and international policy. Beck holds that the Constitution of the United States is legally superior to and not subject to the views of other nations. Transnationalism should be of great concern to every American. Check it out for yourself and see what you think ... don't let others decide this issue for you ... educate yourself and then decide.

CondorMan said...

The criticism of Obama and Koh by Glen Beck is not based on their intelligence or their previous jobs. It is simply based on their position on the issue of transnationalism as it relates to matters of national and international policy. Beck holds that the Constitution of the United States is legally superior to and not subject to the views of other nations. Transnationalism should be of great concern to every American. Check it out for yourself and see what you think ... don't let others decide this issue for you ... educate yourself and then decide.

CondorMan said...

The criticism of Obama and Koh by Glen Beck is not based on their intelligence or their previous jobs. It is simoly based on their position on the issue of transnationalism as it relates to matters of national and international policy. Beck holds that the Constitution of the United States is legally superior to and not subject to the views of other nations. Transnationalism should be of great concern to every American. Check it out for yourself and see what you think ... don't let others decide this issue for you ... educate yourself and then decide.

Joshua said...

Condor, that's charming except that's not at all what Beck said. As I said, Sekulow gave a more rational, measured critique in this segment. But Sekulow having a minimally sane position doesn't make what Beck said any less idiotic. Beck does seem to think that laws didn't change before 1920 and seems to think that this has something to do with evolution. That's so ridiculously out there it screams Dunning-Kruger.

Sekulow's claims about transnationalism are incidentally wrong (the Constitution explcitly allows the forming of treaties for a reason). Moreover, in the 19th century it was not at all uncommon for US Courts to cite foreign courts for useful precedent. The lack of such citation is a fairly recent phenomenon. Finally, pragmatically speaking, other countries are much more likely to listen to our courts when our courts are willing to listen to theirs. If we want to encourage democracy abroad, then we should have no fear of paying attention to what foreign courts say and citing them when they are relevant.

Lautreamont said...

Glen Beck doesn't even deserve the attention intelligent people like yourselves are giving him within this blog. Much like Josh, whenever I hear Beck speak his points are so insane, so amazingly obtuse and off-topic, and so factually incorrect that I can not even form cohesive arguments against him. It is much like arguing against a brainwashed 10 year old or a small dog. As for Koh, in terms of brainpower and credentials he isn't even of the same species as Beck and Sekulov.

E-Man said...

Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought that this was the problem Beck was bringing up. If our constituion and some foreign governments legal ruling contradict one another this guy Koh wants to make their law win out over our constitution. That seems bad to me since America exists because of the constitution.

This reminds me of the idea that the UN can enforce a law that bans the ability for anyone to criticize Islam, that is also anti-our constitution. So if Koh were in charge, would it be illegal in the united states to criticize Islam? But the Europeans said it is illegal?

That is how I understood what they were talking about. I mean, beck often says extremely exaggerated things, but I don't think they are meant to be taken literally. He is just pointing something out in an extreme way.

Joshua said...

E-Man, there may be valid problems with transnationalism. And yes, the possibility of the UN passing anti-blasphemy regulations is certainly one thing that should give rational individuals pause when considering how much credence we should give to treaties and similar obligations. I am, however, very sure that in such extreme circumstances Koh would not advocate any adherence to such obligations. Koh's position is much more moderate than that: More or less, that we should pay attention to treaty obligations that we've signed and that our judges should be willing to look at precedence and logic in other democracies when making decisions.

But this is all besides the point, because Beck didn't just exaggerate. Beck claimed that the notion that laws change is somehow modern and connected to the biological theory of evolution isn't a matter of exaggeration: It's just incredibly ignorant.

Sekulow, gives a much more modest critique of Koh, much closer to what you said. But there's no way that Beck can be saved by Sekulow having a possibly reasonable critique. Beck displays ignorance about how law works, how it has worked and then demands that other people be fired for not knowing enough. There's no way to get that to look good for Beck.