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Op-Ed Amanda Knox: Donald Trump supported me when I was wrongly accused of murder. What do I owe...
Source: Los Angeles Times
...
The message was clear: Trump defended me in the past; how dare I not defend him now? Never mind that Trump doesn’t share my values. If I won’t endorse him, at the very least I should keep my “left-wing lunacies” to myself.
This conviction is both undemocratic and dangerous. Just as a person’s support of me should not be based upon my politics or identity, hinging instead on the fact of my innocence, so should my politics hinge on the merits of policy, not personal loyalty.
In “The Righteous Mind,” Jonathan Haidt describes loyalty as one of the moral foundations that conservatives feel more strongly than liberals. It’s part of what makes morality “a force that binds and blinds.” Loyalty can bind people together under a common cause, but it can also blind people as to whether or not their cause is just.
I discovered just how blinding loyalty could be when, in December 2009, an Italian court convicted me of a murder I didn’t commit. That judgment rested heavily on the court’s bias in favor of the prosecution, which represented the Italian people and the Italian state, over the defense, which represented a foreigner.
This is loyalty taken too far. And it calls to mind the party-over-policy approach that currently plagues our own politics.
...
There is a kind of loyalty I wholeheartedly support: loyalty to our ideals of due process, equal protection under the law, the freedom to speak one’s mind and to vote according to one’s principles. Only in banana republics do political leaders dole out favors to citizens in exchange for their silence and their vote. By holding personal loyalty above all else, Trump and some of his supporters create a political environment where reason and justice hold little sway. He was probably right when he said he could “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody” and not “lose voters” — that’s what happens when personal loyalty is paramount.
...
But the more important question is, what do I owe my country? Civic engagement, careful consideration of issues that affect my fellow citizens, and support for policies that deserve support, even if it makes the president “very upset.”
The message was clear: Trump defended me in the past; how dare I not defend him now? Never mind that Trump doesn’t share my values. If I won’t endorse him, at the very least I should keep my “left-wing lunacies” to myself.
This conviction is both undemocratic and dangerous. Just as a person’s support of me should not be based upon my politics or identity, hinging instead on the fact of my innocence, so should my politics hinge on the merits of policy, not personal loyalty.
In “The Righteous Mind,” Jonathan Haidt describes loyalty as one of the moral foundations that conservatives feel more strongly than liberals. It’s part of what makes morality “a force that binds and blinds.” Loyalty can bind people together under a common cause, but it can also blind people as to whether or not their cause is just.
I discovered just how blinding loyalty could be when, in December 2009, an Italian court convicted me of a murder I didn’t commit. That judgment rested heavily on the court’s bias in favor of the prosecution, which represented the Italian people and the Italian state, over the defense, which represented a foreigner.
This is loyalty taken too far. And it calls to mind the party-over-policy approach that currently plagues our own politics.
...
There is a kind of loyalty I wholeheartedly support: loyalty to our ideals of due process, equal protection under the law, the freedom to speak one’s mind and to vote according to one’s principles. Only in banana republics do political leaders dole out favors to citizens in exchange for their silence and their vote. By holding personal loyalty above all else, Trump and some of his supporters create a political environment where reason and justice hold little sway. He was probably right when he said he could “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody” and not “lose voters” — that’s what happens when personal loyalty is paramount.
...
But the more important question is, what do I owe my country? Civic engagement, careful consideration of issues that affect my fellow citizens, and support for policies that deserve support, even if it makes the president “very upset.”
Read more: http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-knox-trump-loyalty-20170504-story.html
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