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The Right To Bear Arms - The Cosmic/Historic View

Yesterday I noted how issues of guns, gun control, and the right to bear arms had become politicized... no surprise there, right?

What is surprising, though, is the extent to which the politicization of the issue over time has completely turned the historical record on its ear.  Adam Winkler, a UCLA professor of Constitutional law, writing recently in The Atlantic ("The Secret History of Guns") makes this clear. 

(Note: the article is based on Winkler's new book, Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America, appearing soon.  You can order the book from the right margin.)>>>>>>>>>

Winkler points out that - contrary to what many of us might suppose in the context of the contemporary heated debate - not so long ago, the NRA and Ronald Reagan and the Ku Klux Klan all supported restrictions on gun ownership in varying degree, while the Black Panthers were zealous advocates of the unrestricted possession of loaded weapons.  As the professor also argues, until recently in the U.S. (about 1977), the right to bear arms for self-defense (in addition to service in a "militia") has never been challenged, yet on the other hand, neither has the general understanding that some controls, such as registration, were not only fitting, but necessary. 

To some degree, Winkler may be channeling some of the same thoughts that color Justice Clarence Thomas's approach to the Second Amendment here ... (see the interesting piece in this week's New Yorker regarding Thomas), but at least from this summary piece of Winkler's book, it appears to go deeper and broader than that.

In any case, there is a pendulum effect swinging through the history on this issue, as on others where balance has historically characterized our approach to an issue, and where balance has been lost.  To quote Winkler:

The Fourteenth Amendment illustrates a common dynamic in America’s gun culture: extremism stirs a strong reaction. The aggressive Southern effort to disarm the freedmen prompted a constitutional amendment to better protect their rights. A hundred years later, the Black Panthers’ brazen insistence on the right to bear arms led whites, including conservative Republicans, to support new gun control. Then the pendulum swung back. The gun-control laws of the late 1960s, designed to restrict the use of guns by urban black leftist radicals, fueled the rise of the present-day gun-rights movement—one that, in an ironic reversal, is predominantly white, rural, and politically conservative.

 How times change! 

 

 

Can Perry Take The "Compassion" Out Of Conservatism?

I'd answer a definite "no" to the above question.  Oh, sure, we can read about Rick Perry's repudiation of George W. Bush's "compassionate conservatism," his view that conservatism doesn't need rebranding as "compassionate;" and we can see that the Washington Post seems to be taking this blather seriously, but REALLY now, are they joking?  Did anybody seriously believe that Bush's conservatism was meaningfully "compassionate," after he'd been in office for 30 days or so?

No, Perry can't take the compassion out of conservatism, because in the current Republican version, there isn't any.  You can't get blood out of a turnip; you can't get compassion out of today's GOP.  At least Perry is being honest, though, labeling Bush as part of the problem for his role in creating the "big government binge."  And thus he lays out for all to see his political strategy, a very reasonable one:  recognizing that our current mess is all Bush's doing, he's running against the Bush record.  That's something I believe any serious Republican candidate has to deal with.  

Personally I suspect Perry believes he can capture the far-right conservative vote in primaries to make himself the Republican candidate:  repudiate the disgraced and insignificantly conservative Bush, tout religious fundamentalism, question basic science, excoriate immigrants ...   And once he's the candidate, will he suddenly display a newfound moderation on these issues, re-embrace compassion (perhaps finding another name for it) in order to appeal to independent voters? 

If he doesn't, surely his goose is cooked; but if he does, that doesn't seem a winning strategy either -- will independents really buy such a sudden and calculating shift?  Even if they do, will they be foolish enough to swallow the figment of "compassionate conservatism" a second time?

The Right To Bear Arms - A Microcosmic Story

Recently Congressman Leonard Boswell and his family fought off an intruder on their Iowa farm.  It's an interesting story that presents in microcosm almost all the Second Amendment issues that fester in the body politic today.  It has:

• An intruder who was eventually driven away by the threat of a loaded shotgun. (NRAnians can rejoice over this "proof" that guns save lives and everybody ought to own a couple of assault rifles.)
• An intruder, however, who could have been shot and wasn't.  (Those who know and use guns will suggest he should have been killed - "don't pull a loaded gun if you don't intend to use it.")
• A family of several people who acted incautiously and incoherently, clearly endangering themselves as they grappled with the intruder, if his gun had been real.  (Those who fear guns and think nobody should ever own one can point to the dangers of attempting to resist an armed intruder.)
• Just plain foolishness, such as having two rottweiler guard dogs who were regularly locked up at night.  (Citizens of common sense may ask, why have the dogs at all, then?)

Commentary on this Washington Post article brings out all these threads of the "gun debate."  I'd agree with the fellow who suggests it wouldn't have been a bad thing if the intruder had been shot and killed, but who also concedes this whole incident proves nothing about the desirability or legality of having some reasonable controls on who can obtain them.  E.g., the intruder in this case lived to become a -- let us hope -- convicted felon; should he be able to arm himself, after serving a short term being supported by the state, so that his next attempt will be more successful?

Commentary also demonstrates how politicized the right to bear arms has become, with one angry reader assuming that because Congressman Boswell is a Democrat, he must be "anti-gun," and needs to learn a lesson from his experience.  Actually, though Boswell is a Democrat, he's a rural one, and sports an A rating from the NRA. 

(More soon on the politics and legal issues of guns.)

Do We Exaggerate Natural Disasters?

In my area lately, we had the pleasure of experiencing three different types of natural disaster.  First on July 3 came a very localized "microburst" affecting an area not much wider than our neighborhood; the second, a 5.8-magnitude earthquake in central Virginia felt from Georgia to New York and Indiana; and the third, hurricane Irene, now petering out somewhere over New England, which affected millions of people in the Caribbean and the entire eastern U.S. seaboard. 

Of these, the most damaging for our locality was the microburst, which brought down numerous large trees, cut power, and destroyed several homes -- I theorize that it also probably kept us from experiencing any serious effects from Irene, by preemptively removing shaky trees and weak limbs. 

Hurricanes are excruciatingly long, drawn-out affairs.   You might suppose a weather phenomenon packing winds of 80, 100, or even higher miles-per-hour winds would zip right through your neighborhood, but it's not so.  This one moved up the east coast at a rate of only 15 miles per hour and affected weather in my locality for about 18 hours (6 hours for the most dangerous combination high winds and heavy rain).  The secret, of course, is that the high winds aren't straight, but circulating spirally around the eye of the storm.  

Still, waiting for it, and then waiting for it to pass, was both boring, and a little anxiety-inducing.  Would my neighbor's 100-foot pine tree, just on the property line to the north, be pushed over onto my house by Irene's northerly winds?  And if so, would it kill me or just destroy the house?  For about 24 hours, I got to consider these unanswerable questions.  (In the end, the pine stood firm.)   But if I get to choose my disasters, I'll take the unpredicted 20-second earthquake, or the 10-minute tornado, please.  

Another factor making the hurricane wait far less pleasant was the media coverage.  With the nearest edge of Irene still about 10 hours away, all our local channels began 24-hour "news" coverage to the exclusion of all else, and they kept it up until (last time I checked) the last trace of the storm was miles to our north.  Overall, the coverage was nonstop for about 36 hours.  With the storm moving so slowly, as you might expect, there was seldom much new to report.  Once the media juggernaut gets moving, though, no force can stop it (sort of like a hurricane?).  Even by the time the reportage began, it was clear that Irene was not only not a Category 3 storm as had been predicted earlier, but barely a 2.  (Not much later, she was officially downgraded to a 1.)   Newscasters, geared for a big, destructive storm, and already deployed to locations hundreds of miles away, were reluctant to acknowledge that this made the storm far less dangerous.

The media attention, plus modern society's tendency to lean toward caution and security, have changed our approach to these natural disasters.  A few decades ago, we probably would just have read in the morning paper that a hurricane was expected that day.   We would have taken whatever precautions we considered necessary, and pretty much gone about our business, and lived with the consequences.  No doubt the new approach is laudable if it saves lives and lessens destruction; yet like many aspects of modern life, it also adds its share of complication.       

Checks And Balances Part Two - Income Disparity

A few days ago I mentioned the hoary concept of checks and balances in the way our government is set up.   That's the formal part of it, but a much more informal check-and-balance system has long been a part of our social fabric - the pendulum of power has shifted among opposing interests, ebbed and flowed as competing groups gain an edge and then lose it again, either because conditions change or their opponents develop a new strategy.  Sometimes, it's taken a wrenching adjustment like the Great Depression to restore balances.

There are unfortunately many areas in which balance currently seems lost.  I think this situation partly accounts for our political paralysis --  as groups or their representatives come to feel that they can't get a fair shake, or that they are "out of balance" vis-a-vis their competing groups, they become increasingly recalcitrant.  It's especially true where economic power and benefits are concerned; but those often stem from relative political power, so that's affected too.  Where do we have imbalances?  Well, for starters: 

Income:  the haves and the have-nots.   You may have heard recently that the top 1% of incomes in the U.S. take home as much as the lowest 60%.  We've always had people in this country of great - some might say "obscene" - wealth in this country.  I suspect it's true in other countries too.  They are at the pinnacle, and more often than not, they become the Carnegies and Nobels of the world, leaving properties, collections, or charitable foundations to the commonweal that others couldn't possibly afford to amass -- think the relatively modest Hillwood Museum in Washington DC, or Hearst's San Simeon.  Still, doesn't that 1%/60% figure seem more than just a little extreme?  And of more concern, as Don Peck pointed out in The Atlantic ("Can the Middle Class Be Saved?"), the gap between the überwealthy and the rest of us continues to grow. 

Workers/Employers:  With a Constitution heavily focused on property rights, it's no wonder that it's usually the business and corporate interests that have the upper hand in this eternal struggle.  Again, though, the situation now seems due for a correction.  This echoes, to a degree, the imbalance in income distribution, but it's a matter of political power too.  Union membership is historically low; it may in part be because during the 40s and 50s, unions were ascendant and tended to overreach; but it's hard to look at the current situation and think that management isn't overreaching far more.   

Religion/Science: These two aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, or the opposite ends of a scale, yet far too many people these days (mainly, I think, on the "religion" side of the balance) believe that they are, and seek to deny the fundamental realities of science.  See yesterday's Morning Fog entry. 

Urban/Rural:  There seems to be an increasing split of attitude between the urban and rural parts of the country.  People often shorthand this as the "coasts" and "between the coasts," but it's much more of a mosaic than that (in Virginia, there's NoVA - northern Virginia - and RoVA -the rest of Virginia).  There are plenty of small towns in California or New York, and big cities in Ohio, or Texas.  But the towns and countryside have increasingly different problems and perspectives from the cities -- beginning with population density, but ranging on to prices of goods and services, economic need, jobs, environmental issues, crime, and many others. 

In all these instances of competing interests, politicans at the federal level need to recognize that solutions are needed for both sets of issues, without disparaging the needs of one or the other.  Only compromise can lead that direction, but it's discouraging how little compromise seems to be in the air.

 

Ignoring Science

Back in the 1960s, spurred by competition with the Soviet Union, the U.S. made an immense commitment to education in science that not only carried us into space but sparked entire new industries.  That seems to have lasted a generation or so but now, as the baby boomers start pushing into their retirement years, their sons and daughters seem more devoted to anti-science.  When we have politicians (or others who make policy for us) claiming that climate change doesn't exist; or professing creationism and insisting on its being taught in schools; or even scoffing at President Obama's efforts to provide even meager funding for investment in education in future, then we have to be worried.

A fellow who wrote a "Letter to the Editor" of the Washington Post yesterday said it well, I think.  The writer was responding to a review in the paper of the current controversy over "global warming": 

This seems rather like the political powers in Italy in 1632 disagreeing with Galileo that the Earth revolved around the sun. The Catholic Church took this position because Galileo’s conclusions did not support church dogma, and it is obvious that some of our political leaders approach the global warming issue with their own dogmatic biases.

Along with his letter was another (see the same link, above) authored by a former undersecretary of Energy (1988-1989), which complained that the Post had not thoroughly covered the scientists who deny that global warming is caused by human activity.   The second letter provides perfect illustration of the danger outlined in the first -- someone in a policy position (however  briefly) who seems prepared to ignore science in favor of dogma.  

Scientific opinion is seldom monolithic; of course one can always find a scientist or two to argue that the overwhelming majority of their colleagues are wrong.  In the case of climate change (a more neutral term), however, no one even bothers to argue it's not happening.  The data are clear.  And I'd suggest for the scoffers that its cause (manmade or natural?) is irrelevant.  Given that it threatens to severely alter our planet, possibly even make it uninhabitable, the real issue is what we can do about it.  The answers on that are pretty clear.  It seems worse than foolish to ignore damaging trends that we may be able to mitigate.  

The Military Entitlement

I've argued for some time that if we are to put our national budget on a diet, and cut costs enough to restore both a degree of fiscal responsibility AND a degree of flexibility in government spending, we can't continue to be straitjacketed by the huge percentage of our outlays now being taken up by "entitlements." 

Lately politicians have rather cautiously approached this taboo subject too, but they tend to focus on "fixing" social security and medicare through a combination of cost cuts and premium increases, while ignoring the 800-pound sacred cow on the books -- military spending.  That, to me, seems unreasonable.  We must include military spending in our search for cuts.

Naturally there are those who don't see it that way, including most members of the military services.  Their views are, I think, fairly well represented by retired Col. Andrew Bacevich's thoughtful piece, "Don't Rewrite the Rules..." this weekend.  But I think Bacevich leaves out a couple of pertinent points, and unrealistically inflates others.

He argues that reduced retirement benefits could put an end to the all-volunteer army.  Personally, I would welcome a return to conscription, but our politicians have found it easier to fight long wars of choice if the fighting is being handled by guys and gals who volunteered for it.   So if we can't get the draft back, let's look closely at this premise. 

It's true that as we switched to a volunteer force after Vietnam, benefits and active duty salaries were enhanced considerably as an incentive to volunteer.  However, the retirement system for the military is pretty much the same now as it was forty years ago, so it can't be seen as an incentive built for volunteers.  If we're honest with ourselves, most of us who are now in, or have served in, the military will concede that when you're 18, or 20, or 22 and thinking of a military career, you don't look 30 years ahead and consider the retirement benefits in any studied way.  

I think this is true in any career, it's just human nature.  You're considering starting salary, benefits like health care maybe, but definitely not the retirement system.  I know I didn't.   And to be frank, it would worry me to think that many of our professional military people were worried about their retirement plan at that age.  If they are, maybe they'd be better off as CPAs or insurance salesmen.  Finally, this whole argument ignores a key fact of our age:  The pattern of careers has changed; a "typical" working life will be divided into a half-dozen or more stints with different employers, possibly doing very different work.  No one nowadays expects to be with the same employer his entire working life.

In fact to me, it's because we have a professional, all-volunteer force that we can and should look at the costs of their overall compensation.  When we had a bunch of draftees, we could get all dewy-eyed thinking of the poor bums who served while their buddies stayed home, built careers, and stole their girlfriends; and we built a compensation package for the relatively small corps of "lifers" accordingly.  We haven't got out of that habit yet, but that citizen soldier no longer exists.  We should look at a professional force with a much clearer eye.  When we do, we'll see that his/her dependence on a pension is no more dire than seniors' dependence on social security or medicare.  (Perhaps it's even less as the military pensioner begins younger.) 

We'll also see that unlike social security recipients and medicare beneficiaries, military members pay nothing - not a cent - out of pocket for their retirement plan.  (They pay social security taxes, and receive social security benefits in addition to their military pension.)  How could we possibly consider it fair that we stand to be increasing premiums for medicare, requiring higher or longer pay-ins for social security, but don't ask our military members to contribute something toward a pension most other people would consider very generous?  What it really boils down to is whether we want to create a privileged military class; I posit that we don't - no more than we have already.

All that said, I also believe, as Bacevich does, that the military life makes more demands than most civilian occupations, and that there should be a defined benefit retirement system that covers them.  Ideas now being proposed, about jettisoning the current system in favor of a 401(k) plan, are just as misguided as the suggestion that we do away with social security and put private savings accounts in their place.  These "solutions" benefit only banks, investment advisors, and other financial institutions, to the detriment of retirees.  Keep the pension, but certainly - for new recruits - institute a reasonable payment to come from the beneficiary.  

Checks And Balances

Once upon a time, when princes and dragons roamed the land, they used to teach "civics" in school, and when they did, we learned about the "checks and balances" that had been cleverly built into our political system by giving each "branch" separate powers and by making legislation subject to the agreement of two differently constituted legislative bodies.  

Does our current political logjam illustrate that this system is broken, or that it's working as it should? 

Answer A:  It's the latter.  Since the electorate seems to be very closely divided in opinion on many issues, it seems we only have the "checks" anymore:  A Rabid Republican minority can commandeer its party's entire agenda; a Diehard Democratic cabal can have critical effect by withholding its approval of some initiative the rest of its party supports.  But it can be argued that this is what the Founders intended; in the absence of consensus, action should wait (years, if necessary) until consensus exists. 

I'm sometimes nonplussed by modern-day public figures who claim those who penned the Constitution were rip-roaring democrats; in fact, many were worried about where full one-man one-vote democracy would lead, and the concept they came up with was really intended to hold democratic enthusiasms in check, and to balance the will of the people with that of the supposedly wiser and more learned elite. 

A lot of people today don't want to acknowledge this historical circumstance, but if we DO acknowledge it, the crux of our current problem becomes a little more evident.  Our Constitution may have been an ideal one for a slower-paced world and a mostly rural and agrarian society, with a small population spread across a land area that a fraction of what it is today.   Some among us today still imagine that we live in such a place (or wish that we did).   

The rest of us, however, might ask:  Could Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and all the other leading lights of that period possibly have conceived of a time when a single Representative in the U.S. House Thereof would represent on average 640,000 people, or that one state (California) might have 37 times the population of another (Wyoming), making a democratic travesty of the "two Senators-per-state" rule?  Can we imagine that they foresaw an electorate so bitterly divided on fundamental points, or elected representatives who would be so irresponsible as to pursue (out of concern for self-preservation), an agenda clearly working to the nation's detriment?   I somehow doubt it (after all, they had that crazy formula about the representation of slaves in there, and they seem to have forgotten entirely to provide denizens of the federal district any voting rights at all).  No, indeed, the Founders weren't perfect, and they certainly weren't prescient.  Which brings us to: 

Answer B:   No, the system really is broken.  It may produce exactly what the Founders intended, but we shouldn't fool ourselves about what -- or why -- their intentions were what they were.  Instead, we should ask whether their vision is a valid framework for the twenty-first century United States of America.

Trivial Pursuit: The National Economy Version

Everywhere I look in the news today, the "I-want-mine" crowd is in evidence, especially where the do-or-die Congressional economic committee is concerned.  A couple of examples:

• Terry O'Neill, President of NOW, argues that half the new economic commission should be women, because women will be "disproportionately affected" by what the Committee does.
• Rep. Charles Gonzalez, Chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, says that "the Latino community has the most at stake" from any cuts the Committee may make.
• It's a matter of record that both AARP and Nancy Pelosi, among others, still vow to fight to the death to preserve current benefits for seniors.
• Objectively viewed, it may be correct to argue that rich white males are most affected by the economic crisis; in absolute terms of money lost, that's probably true, and while no one to my knowledge has yet made this argument publicly, I'm sure there are a number of Republican politicians who would be glad to make it.  Meanwhile, it's worth noting that there is zero diversity among the six Committee members named by the GOP

All the quotes/positions come from people who pose as, and who should in fact be, opinion leaders and policy shapers.  Yet their key quality seems to be selfishness. 

They yammer about the narrow interests of their own constituency, be it large or small.  That's not right.  Our federal government must serve all the people.  It should, for example, try to ensure equality of opportunity and access to jobs and other benefits; but beyond what's necessary to accomplish that broad mandate, it categorically should not be developing measures aimed at the specific expectations of one group or another.   

They also argue for diversity, suggesting that only a Latino can possibly represent Latino interests, only a woman can speak to women's issues.  Diversity is a major buzzword these days; maybe those who represent interest groups feel they can't possibly not mention it.  They should. (Not mention it).   It's a factor that should be considered as a measure of our success in creating equal access and opportunity, but it can also be a red herring.  The counterargument is that IF a member of this high-powered committee happens to be a representative of a certain group, and sees his/her role as being to further the specific interests and needs of that group, then he/she shouldn't be on the commission.  (This applies to political parties as well as to socioeconomic factors like ethnicity, gender, or sexual preference by the way.) 

We need broad-ranging measures that will help to improve our economic well-being generally.  A rising tide floats all boats, even if some remain stuck on the sand bar just slightly longer than others.