PRINCETON – No doubt many people
around the world, if not most, breathed a sigh of relief over the re-election
of US President Barack Obama. A BBC
World service poll of 21 countries found a strong preference for Obama
everywhere except Pakistan.
Joy over the election’s outcome, however, should not blind us to its failure to
meet a series of ethical benchmarks for democratic choice.The bulk of this spending is just the two opposing parties canceling each other out. This benefits advertising agencies and the media, but no one else, and surely not the parties themselves, or the viewers who are bombarded with ads, especially if they happen to live in hotly contested swing states. It is difficult to believe that, say, $200 million would not have been enough to inform the electorate adequately of the candidates’ policies.
In this scenario, spending limits would have saved about $5.8 billion. And, if such limits were combined with public financing of election campaigns, they would also help the election to meet an important ethical standard by denying the rich a disproportionate influence on outcomes, and hence on the subsequent actions of the president and Congress.
No one really expects political advertising to provide citizens with the information they need to assess the candidates’ merits properly. For the presidential election, however, the practice of holding three televised debates between the two major parties’ candidates should be an opportunity for a thorough airing of those issues. Unfortunately, the most recent debates failed to achieve that goal.
Consider, for example, the final debate in October, which was supposed to focus on foreign policy. The US may no longer be the world’s undisputed leader, as it was in the decade following the Soviet Union’s collapse, but it nonetheless has a vital role to play in international affairs. Obama referred to the US as “the indispensable nation,” and that description still holds true, in part because US military spending exceeds that of the next nine countries combined – five times more than China, the world’s second-largest military spender.
There was, however, no serious discussion of the conditions under which it would be right to use that military might. Both candidates indicated that they did not favor military intervention to prevent the Syrian government from killing more of its citizens; but, neither was prepared to say when they would be prepared to accept the responsibility to protect citizens who come under attack from their own government, or from forces that their government is unwilling or unable to restrain.
Both candidates said that they would support Israel and not allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons, but there was no discussion of solutions to the Israel-Palestine conflict, or of the grounds on which countries that possess nuclear weapons might be justified to use force to prevent others from developing them.
Indeed, what was not discussed in the candidates’ debate on foreign policy was more significant than what was. All of the discussion focused on the region that stretches from Libya to Iran. China was mentioned only in terms of its supposed “cheating” on trade and currency matters. Issues like the eurozone’s troubles and relations with Russia received no attention at all. Needless to say, neither candidate thought it worthwhile to put forward a proposal to assist the more than one billion people living in extreme poverty.
The gravest omission was climate change. The closest Obama got to it during a debate was to talk about “energy independence,” which implies not being reliant on oil from the Middle East. That, obviously, is something that every patriotic American wants.
Obama also mentioned that he had raised fuel-economy standards for cars in the US, and had invested in renewable energy sources, like solar and wind power. But, when Romney talked about increasing coal production, Obama neglected to point out that carbon dioxide from coal-fired electricity generation is already a major contributor to climate change; that we still lack the technology to produce “clean coal”; and that increasing the use of coal will impose huge burdens on people worldwide.
It took the devastation of Hurricane Sandy to get the president to mention climate change. After that, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that he was endorsing Obama, because his policies were better on climate change. In response, Obama acknowledged that climate change is “a threat to our children’s future, and we owe it to them to do something about it.”
Now that he has been re-elected, the question is whether he will pay that debt to our children and to the generations that follow them.
Peter Singer: 有缺陷的美國大選
普林斯頓— 毫無疑問，全世界很多人（若不是多數的話）會因奧巴馬連任美國總統而舒一口氣。BBC World
Service在二十一國家民調顯示，除巴基斯坦外, 各國非常希望奧巴馬當選。但是，別讓令人欣喜的選舉結果蒙蔽了我們的雙眼，它並沒有合乎民主選舉的一系列倫理標準。
根據美國響應政治中心（Center for Responsive Politics）的數據，此次選舉的支出——包括總統選舉和國會選舉，包括黨外集團支出和候選人及其政黨支出——估計將超過六十億美元。這使2012年美國大選是有史以來最昂貴。
這筆支出大部份用於兩黨互相攻訐。這肥了廣告商和媒體，對其他人則毫無益處，對於兩大政黨和被廣告轟炸的觀眾（特別是在搖擺州者）更是如此。比喻說很難相信二億美元費用還不足以讓一個選區充分了解候選人的政策。
如此，那麼支出上限會節省了五十八億美元左右。此外，如果將這一節省上限與選舉活動的公共資助加上，兩者有助於大選符合一項重要的倫理標準——不讓富人對選舉結果有不合理的左右，進而影響當選後的總統和國會的決策。
無人真的指望政治廣告能給公民提供他們所需要的資料用於評估候選人是否勝任。不過，對總統大選來說，兩大黨候選人之間的三次電視辯論理應成為提供資料的機會。可惜，最近的電視辯論並沒有做到。
就拿十月份的最後一次辯論來說，這次辯論應該以外交政策為焦點。美國可能已不再像蘇聯解體最初十年時那樣是無可置疑的世界領袖，儘管如此，它在國際事務中仍然關鍵。奧巴馬將美國稱為「不可或缺的國家」，這一描述依然成立，部分是因為美國軍事支出超過隨後九國之和——比世界第二大軍事支出國中國高五倍。
但是，關於要什麼條件才可使用武力，並沒有認真討論。兩位候選人都表示無意以武力干預敘利亞政府殺戮平民的行為，也沒有說何時會保護他國公民免受他們國家不願或不能阻止的勢力襲擊。
兩位候選人均表示支持以色列、不允許伊朗發展核武器，但沒有討論解決以色列-巴勒斯坦衝突的辦法，也沒有討論核武國家在什麼條件下可以有理據地使用武力阻止其他國家發展核武。
事實上，沒有在候選人電視辯論中討論的外交政策問題比討論的問題更加重要。所有討論內容都局限在自利比亞到伊朗的地區, 只提到中國一次，說它在貿易和貨幣問題上「作弊」。歐元區危機和對俄關係等問題則沒有提及。不用說兩位候選人都認為沒有必要提出如何幫助生活在赤貧中超過十億人的方案。
最危險的忽略是氣候變化問題。奧巴馬在一次辯論中曾經最接近觸及這個問題便是說到了「能源獨立」，是減少對中東的石油依賴。這顯然是所有愛國的美國人想聽到的。
奧巴馬說已經提高了美國的汽車節能標準，並投資發展可再生能源如太陽能和風力能源等。但是，當羅姆尼談到增加煤產量時，奧巴馬並未指出用煤發電所產生的二氧化碳已成為氣候變化的罪魁禍首﹔而我們仍然沒有生產「清潔煤」的技術﹔而增加煤的使用會給全世界人民帶來沉重的負擔。
颶風桑迪所造成的災難才讓總統注意到了氣候變化。颶風過後，紐約市長布隆伯格宣布支持奧巴馬，因為他的氣候變化政策比較好。奧巴馬在回應中承認氣候變化是「威脅着我們孩子的未來，我們有義務為他們嘗試解決這難題。」
現在，他已經連任，且看他是否向我們的子孫兌現承諾。