Tag: Guns

Cut!

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Movie Board
Action!

“Captain,” said the Chief Engineer in the third bulkhead of Titanic, standing in eighteen inches of north Atlantic ice water, a mere ten minutes after her hull was shredded by the unseen iceberg, “we’re taking on water! What do you want us to do?”

“Take on more water!” replied Captain Smith.

CUT! Wait.  That’s not what happened. That would be stupid.

And…ACTION!

“Stand back you people,” said the Second Officer, pointing his revolver at the crowd surging toward the remaining life boats, “I will shoot the next man to rush forward.”

“No you won’t,” bellowed John Jacob Astor IV, pushing his way toward the front of the crowd. All at once, every member of the crowd cocked back the hammers of their pistols.  Suddenly, the ship righted itself, the gash in her side healed and she maintained her top speed through iceberg-pocked waters toward New York.

CUT! That’s even dumber than before.  That didn’t happen.

Take it from the top. And… ACTION!

“Iceberg, straight ahead!” the hypothermic lookout cried, perched in the crow’s nest high above the gleaming wooden deck below.

“Be calm, my son,” said Jesus, who was standing next to him. And with a wave of his hand, the iceberg melted away and no harm ever befell any of the passengers. They all lived happily ever after and God called them home after a long life and with no pain or suffering.

CUT!  What’s going on here? None of that happened! The ship hit the iceberg, panic ensued, the ship sank and 1,514 people died horrifically painful deaths.

Ah, but there’s the problem.  We’ve all become victims of subscribing to a Hollywood script.  We all believe that we’re at various stages on our own hero’s journey and that everything will end with a storybook ending amidst a symphonic crescendo playing in the background. We die, roll credits.

Reality knows no script.  Reality kicks you in the teeth, waits for you to shake it off, then kicks you in the nuts when your head clears, then hands you a bouquet of roses.  No rhyme, no reason. That’s life! And to presume that there is some cosmic game plan in which you feature in a starring role is both delusional and dangerous. My son’s philosophy professor, Galen Strawson wrote Against Narrativity in 2004. To read it is to appreciate the danger our civilization faces living in this miasma.

2012 in America has been ruled by the gun.  We’ve seen 13 mass shootings this year alone. If we were “stunned” on February 21st at the shooting in Norcross, GA, where four people were killed, plus the shooter, we looked away. If we were “aghast” on February 27th at the shooting in Chardon, OH where three were killed and another two injured, we barely stirred. If we were “upset” on March 8th at the shooting in Pittsburgh, PA where one was killed, plus the shooter and seven were injured, we looked down. If we were “angry” on April 2 at the shooting in Oakland, CA where seven were killed and three injured, we mumbled. If we were “disappointed” on April 6th at the shooting in Tulsa, OK where three were killed and two were injured, we barely noticed. If we were “caught off-guard” on May 30th at the shooting in Seattle, WA, where five were killed, plus the shooter and one more was injured, we changed the channel.  If we were “outraged” on July 20th at the shooting in Aurora, CO, where twelve were killed and fifty-eight were injured, we clicked “Like” on Facebook to send a prayer. If we were “distressed” on August 5th at the shooting in Oak Creek, WI, where six were killed, plus the shooter and three more were injured, we asked “why?” If we were “troubled” on August 13th at the shooting in College Station, TX, where two were killed, plus the shooter and four more were injured, we shook our heads.  If we were “disgusted” on September 27th at the shooting in Minneapolis, MN, where six were killed, plus the shooter and three more were injured, we turned the page. If we were “concerned” on October 21st at the shooting in Brookfield, WI, where three were killed, plus the shooter and four more were injured, we barely blinked. If we even noticed on December 11th the shooting in Happy Valley, OR, where two were killed, plus the shooter and another was injured, we kept quiet. But, if we were not apoplectically pissed-off and sick to our stomachs on December 14th at the shooting in Newtown, CT, where twenty-seven were killed, plus the shooter and an unknown number were injured, we deserve nothing better.

Ours is a society of instant gratification married to an inexplicable faith that when times get tough we can just throw our hands up in the air and assure ourselves that our future is in God’s hands. God will protect me.  This pursuit of gratification and surrendering to faith leads to a society that abdicates personal responsibility and any uncomfortable consequences of our actions.

The gun enthusiast espouses that if everybody had a gun, we would all be safe. If every moviegoer in Aurora had brought their popcorn butter glazed Glock with them, the shooter would have paid the price for threatening “civilized” society. In fact, almost every expert agrees that if there were more guns at the scene it would have erupted into a muzzle flash blinding shooting gallery of bullets exploding everywhere and more injuries and deaths. By this same logic, why don’t we pass out nuclear weapons to every country? Don’t I feel safe now!

Texas has proposed that allowing teachers to carry concealed guns will reduce the number of school shootings. Wrong! Also in Texas (surprise), a gun dealer is offering discounts for teachers! Our knee-jerk reaction to gun horror is always the same.  After Aurora, gun sales went up in Colorado.  Gun sales in Connecticut are up now, too.  “Take on more water,” said the Captain.

Our ship will not right itself, the gash in her side will not heal itself and God will not materialize and melt the iceberg.  We are responsible for our own actions and a required participant in the construction of society. To pass off responsibility to God or to a 200 year old, purposely vague document and its second amendment is to sail with our hands off the ship’s wheel and our eyes closed while we accelerate through the dangerous iceberg-laden waters of life. Who wants to sign up for that cruise? I’m tired of watching rational people rearrange the deckchairs while the ship goes down.

Now is the time to act. Now is the time for lucid voices to be heard. Damn the testosterone addled, myopically stunted gun zealots and the impotent, self-serving government representatives. Raise your voice, drown out the din of gunfire and demand civilization be civilized. If not us, who? If not now, when?

And… Action!

Perhaps…

~ thoughtsatlarge ~ 1 Comment

Perhaps the Republican Party will reflect on this election loss and consider its implications on their future.

Perhaps the religious right will no longer be the centerpiece of the Republican Party.  America largely ignored Romney’s Mormonism as an issue.  Perhaps Republicans can learn to ignore everybody else’s religion (or lack thereof).  As America becomes increasingly secular, perhaps we can dispense with the politically correct insipidness that it is alright for anybody to believe in creationism after they have attained the age of two and played with a toy dinosaur.  Perhaps the fanaticism employed by the right in their attempts to include God in every discussion should be left to the Islamic fanatics of the Middle East.  Perhaps the frenzied somnambulist’s nightmare of sharia law infiltrating American jurisprudence can be left to the conspiracy theorists.  Surely we can agree that while American’s rejected Romney’s attempt to return the United States to the social constructs of the year 1950, are there any circumstances under which we would accept a return to the Islamic laws of the year 632?  Someone once said that one conspiracy theorist is a schizophrenic, whereas a group of them is a Republican convention.  Perhaps it is time to change that.

Perhaps the right wing will clear themselves of their paranoid miasma of a national “confiscation day,” where President Obama personally goes door-to-door collecting every gun from the self-proclaimed “sane,” 2nd amendment loving, NRA financing, gun lovers.  Perhaps we can have a rational discussion on gun control and agree that ordinary citizens probably do not need a semi-automatic assault rifle with a 100 round clip in order to defend themselves from a burglar, unless the burglar is China, in which case we have an exceedingly well armored military.

Perhaps Republicans can agree that rape is not a topic on which there can be two rational sides.

Perhaps Republicans will see women’s rights and control over their own bodies as sacrosanct and not fodder for white men to debate.

Perhaps marriage equality will extend its foothold in the less religiously rigid states and plant the seeds for a national discussion devoid of homosexuality being considered a moral abomination and “curable.”

Perhaps Republicans will see Latino’s not as a monolithic Democratic voting block consisting of “wetbacks” and illegal (I hate this term) aliens, but rather Americans.  A look at any of the maps used by the networks in last night’s election coverage shows that America, beyond Tim Russert’s Red State/Blue State analogy is really about urban versus suburban, white versus everybody else (captured as that all-encompassing and grossly misrepresentative term “ethnic”).  For example,  white suburban Virginia versus the “ethnic” northern part of the state, white suburban Ohio versus the “ethnic,” blue-collared northern part of the state, white suburban western Pennsylvania versus the “ethnic” Philadelphia region.  See a pattern?  White’s comprise huge swaths of territory, but with few inhabitants versus the “ethnic” and densely populated cities.  The Red State/Blue State paradigm is flawed.  Perhaps, it should be county based, or perhaps it is time for white Americans to stop trying to return America to the “good old days” of segregation and oppressive “white power” and embrace their place in the prismatic colors that are America’s skin tones.

Perhaps Republicans will take this opportunity to unite with Democrats and engage in meaningful arguments about the cataclysmic topics facing America, represent their constituents without abandoning the greater good and moving the needle on America’s march into an energy independent future.  Perhaps we can dispense with the banal name calling and talentless idolatry rampant in America and engender personal responsibility as a manifesto for our children.

Perhaps Donald Trump will donate his $5 million to a charity of his choice and sit down.

Perhaps, but probably not.

RED, white and BLUE

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The presidential election is in four days and the divide in America has once again been colorized for our dim amusement.  It’s the red states versus the blue states! We should all get t-shirts for the $10 billion being spent on the race, a patriotic “shirts versus skins” game for the world to observe.  Is this a case of north versus south, east versus west, the egomaniacal one-per-centers versus the torpid proletariat, big business versus farmers, cities versus the heartland?  Classify it however you want.  Categorize it until it meets your expectations.  But the differences are there.  First, the facts:

Blue States Red States
Population 63.4% 36.4%
Land Mass 35.9% 64.1%
Population Density, people per sq. mile 659 75
Median Age 37.4 36.0
White America 67.9% 73.8%
Black America 10.6% 11.7%
Latino America 12.6% 8.3%
Asian America 5.4% 1.8%
Foreign Born Americans 11.5% 5.5%
High School Graduation Rates 87.4% 85.5%
Bachelor’s Degrees 30.6% 24.2%
Home of Top 50 Universities 40 10
Veterans 62.2% 37.8%
Military Recruits, per 1,000 eligible 18-24 2.07 2.49
Median Home Value $260,089 $141,129
Median Household Income $56,293 $46,696
Unemployment 7.8% 7.0%
Poverty Rate 12.2% 14.9%
Obesity Rate 25.5% 28.7%
Businesses 66.8% 33.2%
Women-Owned Businesses 15.7% 15.2%
New Home Construction 50.8% 49.2%
Marriage Rates, per 100,000 7.9% 7.3%
Divorce Rates, per 100,000 3.5% 4.1%
Belief in God 66% 78%
Gun Ownership 28.0% 47.1%
Deaths by Firearm, per 100,000 9.5 13.7

One could spend all day searching for correlations among these characteristics; however, a few do stand out more prominently than others.  For example, combining several characteristics, one can state that the Blue States tend to be better educated with higher high school graduation rates, more bachelor degrees and more of the top universities.  Blue States also tend to spend more on their houses (4.6 times their median income) versus Red States who spend only 3.0 times their income on a home.  True, this could be due to the fact that there is more available land in the Red States presumably making lots cheaper to build on.  However, then isn’t it strange that new home constructions are split about evenly between Blue and Red?  And while the overwhelming numbers of businesses reside in the Blue States, their unemployment rate is higher than in the Red States.  However, the poverty rate and obesity rate is higher in Red States.  There is also a strange dichotomy in the Red States.  While being comprised of the “Bible Belt,” they yet have lower marriage rates, higher divorce rates, higher gun ownership and more deaths caused by firearms.  What would God think of that combination?

Blue State Propaganda

Politically, it is also a mixed bag.  When polled, Americans consider the economy to be the overriding theme of this presidential election season.  To borrow a phrase from Bill Clinton’s White House, “It’s the economy, stupid.”  But while you would think the states with the highest unemployment would lean toward Mitt Romney and his job creating (albeit mathematically mystical) juggernaut, it is quite the opposite.  Is this a case of mass delusion or a schadenfreude miasma?  Similarly, if Barack Obama is the embodiment of a socialistic welfare state, why then would the region with the highest household income, the most businesses and a lower poverty rate bother to look at him? Were they all working late and missed his soporific first debate?

Red State Propaganda

It is in these mysteries that this election is wrapped.  God bless the RED, white and BLUE.  Now go vote.

Undecided No More

~ thoughtsatlarge ~ 1 Comment
Image from The New Yorker

My son, a freshman in college, and I were on the phone last night discussing our impressions of the latest town hall debate between President Barack Obama and former governor Mitt Romney.  Given the particularly rancorous tone the debate had, a mirrored reflection of the actual campaign, I commented that I found it hard to believe that there were enough undecided voters in the country to fill the audience, let alone that many in Nassau County; but there they were.

Rabid, robotic sycophants in each party leave no room for the truly undecided voter to express their uncertainty with a candidate lest they be subjected to immediate internment in the opposing camp, suddenly responsible for each plank in a platform in which they are ill-prepared and unwilling to defend.  Are these undecided voters genuinely inquisitive, searching for positions on a myriad of issues or are they the dull, unread and oblivious?  For the sake of the future of the United States, I hope it is the former while concerned it is the later.

The polarization of politics, the fracturing of consensus and absence of debate, the removal of concession as a tool toward progress has paralyzed politics.  A shattered media, where any myopic obsession with one particular issue is rewarded with its own cable channel and a thousand militant websites, encourages the electorate to choose a candidate for their position on a single issue and while ignoring the candidate’s position on every other issue as “somebody else’s problem.” You’re concerned about the economy? The environment be damned.  You’re concerned about healthcare? Jobs be damned. And so on…

Neither candidate has successfully escaped this reality.  In a perfect world, Mitt Romney would be able to express the desire for small business (“the economic engine of the country”) to thrive and grow.  He would be able to encourage the celebration of the individual based on their genius and initiative (not their celebrity quotient), rewarded with the fruits of a capitalistic marketplace or starved by the same; where wealth is seen, not as the unconscionable greed plundered by the mindless “looters” of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, but celebrated as the moral destination of individual gain.  In this perfect world there would be more Hank Rearden’s and Dagny Taggart’s and fewer Wesley Mouch’s and Jim Taggarts.  Unfortunately, this industrial utopia ignores the choices people make.  Atlas Shrugged spends an exhaustive number of pages explaining that the choice a mother makes to give the last piece of bread to her child is not a sacrifice and not given out of pity, but the rational choice of a rational mind.  In the real world, choices like this are made by individuals on a daily basis with no expectation of societal support in return.  Honor is held internally by these individuals, as they navigate life’s course, carved by the choices they have made and determined to persevere.  There are no children in Atlas Shrugged and no characters ravaged by illness, excepting, of course, that a conscious refusal to think for one’s self is terminal. In reality, there are those whom Fortune has betrayed, felled by disease or events beyond their control for whom that proverbial “governmental safety net” should be axiomatic.

Conversely, President Obama has not been able to effectively convey a perfect world where government involvement in the minds and pocketbooks of citizens is not for the benefit of the lazy takers and looters, but where an “audacity of hope” lifts all boats; where society’s infrastructure is measured in the tons of steel and yards of cement in our roads and bridges and not in the number of governmental agencies handing out food stamps and welfare checks to the unworthy.  He has not been able to sell his opponents on a middle class worthy of the platitudes bestowed upon it by Democrats as the hardworking backbone of America, and not the resource-sponging Pablum vilified by Republicans.  To assume that every citizen is doing their best and ignoring society’s leeches does nothing but invite deserved criticism.    No amount of rhetoric can make up for the picture of the able-bodied young man who has fathered countless children without concern for their future, waiting in line for a government check rather than searching for work, laughing in full belief that the government “owes” him.  Nor has the president escaped the portrait, painted in dazzlingly surreal colors by the “Confiscation Day” fear-mongering NRA, of  him as a soft, yellow, liberal hoplophobe, as opposed to a father and leader legitimately questioning why regular citizens need to own AR-15’s with 100 round drums.

Each side sees only the idealized version of themselves in the mirror and ignores the Dorian Gray painting in the corner while only seeing the Dorian Gray painting of their opponent.

My son suggested that the town hall format, while colloquial and folksy did little to further either candidate’s command of the undecided.  He, himself an accomplished high school debater, suggested that there be two debates scheduled for future presidential campaigns.  Each candidate selects the most partisan member of the media they can find, crafts pointed questions and directs them at their opponent, knowing that their opponent will have the same opportunity in the next round.  In fact, why not remove the commentator altogether?  This would eliminate the bias claims leveled at every commentator by partisan hacks and conspiracy theorists.  Simply have one debate where the Republican candidate asks questions directly to the Democratic candidate and a second debate where the Democratic candidate asks questions directly to the Republican candidate.  These debates should be limited to six hours in length and broadcast on every cable and radio station.  Proof of viewership (of both debates) should be required of every voter on election night, thus ensuring that an informed electorate is a prepared electorate, undecided no more.

Killer Words

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“Bully.”  What does that word make you think of?  Someone in particular, a story in the news, your past, yourself?  What about “Intimidation?”  What does that make you think of? “Assault?” “Coersion?” “Extortion?” What about phrases like “mob-mentality” or “balance of power” or “cyberbullying?”

Words have meanings and these meanings are the combined perceptions, prejudices and mores we assign to them, either consciously or inadvertently.  “Bullying” tends to take on the framework of childhood, to be equivocated, downplayed, “kids just being kids.” We typically think of our own lives, the times we were teased, taunted, called-out and called names.  “Toughen-up,” we were told, “Stand up to the bully and he will never bother you again.”  Unfortunately, these equivocations, this preconceived framework of childhood embarrassment betray us and we ignore the effect it has on the individual.  Bullying, in either its verbal, social or physical manifestation would be called harassment, stalking, coercion, extortion, blackmail or assault were it to happen to an adult.  Why, then, do we ignore one and summon the police for the other?  Again, it is the framework we build around the words.

If we relegate bullying to childhood (and young adulthood), we must also acknowledge that this is the time in an individual’s life when they are most vulnerable to the machinations of mobs.  Self-conscious in their physical appearance and their emotional well-being exposed, they magnify every kernel of attention, often distorting it to meet their current frame of mind.  We call it “peer pressure,” a nice, succinct phrase we too eagerly dismiss.  We’ve all been there, we all survived.  Kids!  What can you do?

Unfortunately, we don’t all survive.  Many of us are scared, either physically or mentally due to the effects of this early life assault.  We carry the bitterness of being a victim into adulthood; our self-esteem forever damaged.  We doubt ourselves, limiting our potential and stunting our development, both social, emotional and financial.

Some of us do not survive at all.  According to the Centers for Disease Control, suicide is the third leading cause of death among Americans aged 15-24.  Preliminary 2010 data shows that this amounted to 4,559 kids killing themselves.  3,784 boys whose parents will be destroyed forever and 775 girls whose parents will blame themselves forever, condemned to a lifetime of lost opportunities with acid in their stomach, muscles twisted into perpetual pain and a hole in their heart that will never know comfort.  A lifetime of events left as shattered dreams instead of captured memories.  And why?  Because another individual or group did not “like” their son or daughter?  They did not wear the right clothes, listen to the right music, play the right sport, do the right drugs or drink the right alcohol?  Did they dare to think for themselves, and in doing so become ostracized to the point of complete emotional isolation, the perfect incubator for irrational teenage thoughts to propagate?  The majority of these deaths occur with the explosion of a gun and a bullet tearing into the skull of the child their parent would willingly throw themselves in front of a train to protect.

There is an ongoing debate as to whether cyber bullying should carry the same penalties as bullying, as if the environment in which it is inflicted has any bearing on its effect.  Again, it is the equivocation of words.  The damage is the same, so too should be the penalty.  Worse, the internet never sleeps and feeds upon itself.  One posting has the potential to metastasize into thousands, creating an exponential damage multiplier on its victim.  “Libel.”  “Slander.”  “Extortion.”  “Stalking.”  “Inciting violence.”  “Mob mentality.”  “Coercion.”  “Blackmail.”  “Assault.”  These terms should replace the innocuous “bullying” (or cyber bullying).  Let’s not get trapped in a naming convention when we should be acknowledging the symptoms and acting appropriately.

Amanda Todd killed herself last Wednesday.  She was 15 years old.  Her YouTube video, posted five weeks before she took her life, showed a series of hand written cards outlining her plight and finishing with these words:

I have nobody.

I need someone.

My name is Amanda Todd.

Tell me again how bullying is just a rite of passage, a childhood gauntlet through which we all pass, always made the stronger for surviving?  Tell Amanda’s parents.

Ramblings and Rants

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Just some ramblings and rants today!

The FY2011 budget for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) is $430 million.  The CPB funds both the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR).  The Department of Defense budget for FY2011 is $678 billion.  I did some quick math and found that killing the CPB budget would run the Defense Department for 5 minutes and 33 seconds.  Conversely, cutting the Defense Budget for one year would ensure Big Bird stays on the air for another 1,577 years, or until the year 3589. Now, I don’t know that given the embarrassment of channels available on cable TV, we need to fund a public station, but I do know that I have connected with many of their offerings over the years, including

  • This Old House
  • Victory Garden
  • Sesame Street
  • The Electric Company
  • ZOOM
  • Mister Roger’s Neighborhood
  • NOVA
  • The New Yankee Workshop
  • PBS Newshour
  • Live from Lincoln Center
  • Masterpiece
  • Frontline
  • Julia Child
  • Scientific American Frontiers
  • Ken Burns documentaries
  • Downton Abbey

Did you know that only 15.5% of the PBS budget is funded by the CPB.  The rest is made up of federal grants and contracts (3.3%), state and local taxes (21.8%) and donations from “viewers like you” (59.4%).  The United States spends as much as the next 14 highest spending countries on its military, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.  Don’t believe me?  Here’s the chart:


It seems that we won the Cold War and our reward was to outspend the rest of the world for a military that can be outfoxed with a 737 and an IED.  Al Qaeda would be so much easier to defeat if they had a flag and a specific colored patch on my globe to target.  Unfortunately, they don’t and yet we have “reluctantly” proclaimed ourselves “the world’s policeman,” mainly because the UN is terminally impotent.  We don’t declare war anymore and politicians trip over themselves to declare peace, but a peace devoid of meaning.  We preach democracy and capitalism and ignore the fact that ours is being defeated by the very marketplace mechanism we tout as China buys up our debt.  Our citizens deny personal responsibility in favor of societal blame, seek government handouts while condemning a bloated system and idolize celebrities while condemning a foe stuck in the Dark Ages.  What happened to the Enlightenment, the Age of Reason?  The Greatest Generation shouldn’t be treasured because they defeated Hitler.  They shouldn’t be treasured because they brought us into the technological wonder that is modern day living.  They should be treasured because they got up every day, went to the office, or climbed up and down a ladder painting someone’s house, or focused on being a good parent, or because they paid their taxes and asked for nothing in return but safe roads and bridges.  They should be treasured because they embraced the opportunity to grind out a living.  Today we observe, critique and obfuscate.  We avoid tough decisions and manufacture drama.  Neither Mitt Romney nor Barack Obama claims to have an answer to this problem.  Why should we look to Washington to solve this problem?  Maybe, just maybe, we need to become responsible for ourselves instead of trying to fix the rest of the world’s problems.  Maybe, just maybe, we should bust our ass a little more and kiss it a little less.Put another way, the US spends five times the amount annually on its military as China, 10 times as much as Russia, 43 times as much as Israel and 113 times as much as Pakistan.  And yet, we plan to build 10 new aircraft carriers to replace our existing fleet, at a cost of $10 billion a piece.  Last year, Congress authorized $181 million to build another 70 M1A2 Abrams tanks, despite the fact that the Army doesn’t want them.  They already have 2,000 of these sitting in the California desert collecting dust because they don’t need these either!

It seems that we won the Cold War and our reward was to outspend the rest of the world for a military that can be outfoxed with a 737 and an IED.  Al Qaeda would be so much easier to defeat if they had a flag and a specific colored patch on my globe to target.  Unfortunately, they don’t and yet we have “reluctantly” proclaimed ourselves “the world’s policeman,” mainly because the UN is terminally impotent.  We don’t declare war anymore and politicians trip over themselves to declare peace, but a peace devoid of meaning.  We preach democracy and capitalism and ignore the fact that ours is being defeated by the very marketplace mechanism we tout as China buys up our debt.  Our citizens deny personal responsibility in favor of societal blame, seek government handouts while condemning a bloated system and idolize celebrities while condemning a foe stuck in the Dark Ages.  What happened to the Enlightenment, the Age of Reason?  The Greatest Generation shouldn’t be treasured because they defeated Hitler.  They shouldn’t be treasured because they brought us into the technological wonder that is modern day living.  They should be treasured because they got up every day, went to the office, or climbed up and down a ladder painting someone’s house, or focused on being a good parent, or because they paid their taxes and asked for nothing in return but safe roads and bridges.  They should be treasured because they embraced the opportunity to grind out a living.  Today we observe, critique and obfuscate.  We avoid tough decisions and manufacture drama.  Neither Mitt Romney nor Barack Obama claims to have an answer to this problem.  Why should we look to Washington to solve this problem?  Maybe, just maybe, we need to become responsible for ourselves instead of trying to fix the rest of the world’s problems.  Maybe, just maybe, we should bust our ass a little more and kiss it a little less.

Dullard Nation

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Five people were killed yesterday in a workplace shooting in Minneapolis.  A father accidentally shot and killed his 15 year old son last night in Connecticut.  These were six of the 87 people killed by a gun yesterday.  Eighty-seven, every day, equals over 31,500 killed every year in the United States.  Since 1968, the year Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy were assassinated, over one million Americans have been killed by a gun.

We need to acknowledge that the first ten amendments to the Constitution included in the Bill of Rights are not the same thing as the Ten Commandments.  Stop treating the 2nd Amendment as if it were part of the Decalogue handed down to Moses in Deuteronomy (the sixth edict of which states, “Thou shall not murder”).

The Constitution lives and breathes in two ways.  First, it is open to the interpretation of the Supreme Court and second, it is amendable through a purposely rigorous process. Embrace that it is amendable, and change this anachronistic law or get used to ever more stories like those above.  I hate to be a “glass half empty” guy, but I’m afraid there are too many right-wing, “Day of Confiscation” governmental fear-mongering, opportunistically and selectively religious dullards out there.  The next story is coming, and the one after that.  Neither the ink nor the tears will dry and the blood will continue to flow.

How Big the American Penis

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When did the morality of the United States go from entering World War II because it was the “right” thing to do to invading Iraq because we could?  We won the Cold War and promptly anointed ourselves the world’s policeman and obligatory parent.  We went from a Vietnam-era public untrusting of our government and pleading for peace to a public untrusting of our government and spoiling for a fight with it and everybody else.  We wrap ourselves in two diametrically opposed swatches of moral cloth; the second amendment and the bible.  We believe our government has become tyrannical and thus we must arm ourselves with all manner of weaponry.  We dismiss gun control with vitriolic fervor, siting the legislative ineffectiveness of established laws, while ignoring the fact that those same laws had been eviscerated by NRA-backed politicians.  “See, they don’t work,” say the gun lovers.  A cynical person might see this as a self-fulfilling prophecy purposely set up by the NRA to prove that gun laws don’t work, hiding the fact that the laws were programmed to fail as written.  Fitted with a 30-second sound bite mentality, we espouse our philosophy in fortune cookie slogans.  “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.”  “If we outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns.”  “Should we outlaw the spoon to prevent obesity?”  “Should we outlaw the car to prevent automobile deaths?”  No, we should use some common sense and prevent 100,000 Americans from being shot every year.  Duh.  The problem, of course, is that common sense isn’t common anymore.

We must arm ourselves with concealed weapons because the boogeyman is going to attack us in our homes, while at the same time we profess to follow the teachings of Jesus.  “Keep Christ in Christmas,” reads the bumper sticker on the left side of the bumper of the twelve foot high pickup truck under which I can drive my Camry and not get wet from the rain.  The right side of the bumper has another sticker which reads, “Gun Control means using BOTH hands.”  If only someone in the audience in Aurora had been packing…

Yes, American machismo is alive and well, even without any requisite reasoning.  The top selling vehicle in 2000 was the Ford F-150 pickup truck.  In the years that have followed (living in the post September 11 world of war, our “desire” to move away from an oil based economy  and the birth of “green” technology), the best-selling vehicle through June of this year is the Ford F-150 pickup truck.  My, what we have learned!  True, gas mileage has increased over those ten years.  The 2000 F-150 only got 15 miles per gallon.  The 2012 model got 17.   And why do they have to be jacked up so high that in driving in my lowly hybrid sedan I can’t see past the steel wall in front of me.  Having them behind me is no bargain either.  Their headlights are so high that they pass directly into my rear view mirror!  And when did we begin to believe that pickup trucks must be driven like NASCAR vehicles?

Of course, there is a path back to reason that doesn’t have to pass through “Who is John Galt” egoism.  The 2008 Supreme Court decision referenced, championed and waived like a flag by the gun loving public (D.C. v. Heller) contains language that makes sensible legislation possible.  Two words, actually.  Paragraph number two specifically states:

The Court’s opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.

“sensitive places.”  Further define “sensitive places” and the problem is solved.  Add movie theatres, churches, and anyplace else that I, my wife or children might wander and I’ll be happy.

The second option is to legislate around the second amendment’s archaic premise.  The late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D- N.Y.) suggested on November 4, 1993 that while the United States had a 200 year supply of guns, we only had a four year supply of ammunition.  Turning the oft-quoted phrase noted above on its ear, he was quoted as saying before the senate, “Guns don’t kill people; bullets do.” He proposed legislation adding a tax on ammunition.  A 10,000% tax!  Translated, that means that a $24 box of 20 Black Talon cartridges would cost $1,500.  The Black Talon was a 9-millimeter hollow-tipped cartridge with a bullet advertised as expanding “to expose razor-sharp reinforced jacket petals.  Advertisements for these bullets are quoted as saying, “These cut tissues in the wake of the penetrating core,” and “penetrates soft tissue like a throwing star — very nasty; very effective; a real improvement in handgun ammo.”  Sounds like a great product!  Alas, despite his being the chairman of the Finance Committee, the bill went nowhere.  In an odd endorsement, the comedian Chris Rock, speaking years later as part of his routine, said:

You don’t need no gun control, you know what you need? We need some bullet control. Men, we need to control the bullets, that’s right. I think all bullets should cost five thousand dollars… five thousand dollars per bullet… You know why? Cause if a bullet cost five thousand dollars there would be no more innocent bystanders.

Yeah! Every time somebody get shot we’d say, ‘Damn, he must have done something … Shit, he’s got fifty thousand dollars’ worth of bullets in his ass.’

And people would think before they killed somebody if a bullet cost five thousand dollars. ‘Man I would blow your (f*@#ing) head off…if I could afford it.’ ‘I’m gonna get me another job, I’m going to start saving some money, and you’re a dead man. You’d better hope I can’t get no bullets on layaway.’

So even if you get shot by a stray bullet, you wouldn’t have to go to no doctor to get it taken out. Whoever shot you would take their bullet back, like “I believe you got my property.”

In his 1870 work My Summer in a Garden, Charles Dudley Warner wrote, “Politics makes strange bedfellows.”  Never was this truer than an agreement between Senator Moynihan and Chris Rock!

The macho American male dismisses “rational” discussion on these topics as the ranting of bleeding-heart liberals.  Tree hugging, global-warming-believing, socialists.  We won, you lost, discussion over.  Deal with it.  My gun is bigger than yours; my truck is bigger than yours. My penis is bigger than yours.  Now sit down and shut up before I hit you with either of them.

An Interview with James Madison

~ thoughtsatlarge ~ 2 Comments

Published July 4, 2012

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Thanks to Doc Brown, Marty McFly and time travel, James Madison was cryogenically preserved when he died in June of 1836 at the age of 84.  He was the last surviving Founding Father, considered the Father of the Constitution and author of the Bill of Rights.  Today, healthy and alive, he celebrates his first “second” birthday, having been reborn on July 4, 2011.  We sat down at the Off the Record bar in the Hay-Adams Hotel here in Washington to discuss what he thinks of the political experiment he helped craft over 220 years ago.

ThoughtsAtLarge:

First of all Mr. President, let me thank you for taking the time to meet with me and to wish you a very happy first birthday.

Madison:

Thank you, although I must say, I feel rather like the 261 year old I really am!

ThoughtsAtLarge:

Well, I can only hope to look as good as you at 261, if you don’t mind my saying so, Mr. President.

Madison:                  

Very kind of you to say.

ThoughtsAtLarge:          

Mr. President, as one of the original architects of the American democracy, how do you think it has performed?  And as a follow-up, is it what you had envisioned it maturing into?

Madison:          

Let me first qualify your statement.  Yes, I was one of the people involved in the formation of the government, although, you must understand two things straight away. First, most of us were very young and the times were very uncertain.  I, myself, was only 26!  Second, we consciously created a republic, not a democracy.  The distinction is worth noting.  But to answer your question, I am generally pleased with how it has withstood time, although, it was intended to be more fluid than it has been interpreted.  For example, the three-fifths compromise as written in the Constitution seems both offensive and silly today.

ThoughtsAtLarge:

You are talking about Article 1, Section 2, Paragraph 3 which states:

“Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.”

Madison:

Yes, that was a compromise between the northern and southern states regarding slavery.
But the 13th and 14th Amendments rendered that clause moot, thankfully!

ThoughtsAtLarge:

You were originally a Federalist, or a proponent of a strong central government, but ended up changing to a Democratic-Republican, in favor of strong state’s rights.  Why the change?

Madison:               

Well, you have to understand that, at the time, there was no sense in having strong state’s rights without a strong central government.  However, once that was achieved, we could turn our attention to assuring the ability of individual states to control their own destiny.  Certain concepts lend themselves better to an overarching unanimity, while others can be subject to a more regional interpretation. 

ThoughtsAtLarge:

It is ironic that as the chief author of the Bill of Rights, you were originally against having them at all!

Madison:  

That’s correct!  I didn’t think they were necessary.  I also worried that by delineating specific rights, others, not delineated would not be protected.

ThoughtsAtLarge: 

There are now 27 ratified amendments to the Constitution.  Doesn’t that speak to your desire to have the government’s framework remain fluid?

Madison:     

To a degree, yes, although it was not our intention to have future Supreme Courts attempt
to opine on our intentions in 1789 without taking into consideration society today.

ThoughtsAtLarge:

Can you give us an example?

Madison:         

Of course, the First Amendment never foresaw radio, television, the internet, and iPhones, Fox News, MSNBC or CNN.  The Second Amendment never foresaw any firearm more powerful than a single shot musket or the rise of the United States military to be the most powerful in the history of mankind. 

ThoughtsAtLarge:

It’s ironic you should mention the Second Amendment.  You were a strong proponent of protecting the citizenry’s ability to bear arms.

Madison:                     

Yes, I was, but, again, times were very different.  Our concerns revolved around foreign invasion and insurrection rather than a federal government evolving into a tyrannical dictator.  After all, it was the government we created!  We certainly never foresaw the awesome firepower now available to our citizens.  Remember, it was within the confines of a well-regulated militia that this amendment was conceived.  Today, it has been interpreted to mean that virtually any and all manner of firearm is available to our citizens.  I have read the gruesome accounts of mass murder committed by citizens with access to unbelievably powerful weapons.  Indeed, every day there are firearm murders, suicides and accidents committed under the auspices of my amendment.  This sickens
me!  Our government has evolved over time.  So too, must the Constitution, including the Amendments!  Common sense!  Where is the common sense?

ThoughtsAtLarge:   

So you would be open to changing the Amendment?

Madison:                    

Times change, sir, and so too must law.

ThoughtsAtLarge:   

I see our time has expired, Mr. President.  I want to thank you for taking the time to meet with me to discuss your unique perspective on our government.  May I ask what your upcoming plans are?  Given the changes to which you must be adapting, I am curious to hear your plans.

Madison:        

I have relatives, descendants really, that live out west, far beyond what I knew as “west”!  I am traveling on my first airplane later this month and meeting with them.  I am also fascinated by the cinema.  My, let’s see if I can get this correct, great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great granddaughter wants to see the new Batman movie.  I am very much looking forward to it!

ThoughtsAtLarge:   

That’s lovely.  Where does she live?

Madison:           

Aurora, Colorado.

Heroes

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When I was growing up, Pete Rose was my hero.  I loved the way he played the game.  He gave 100%, every game, every day.  You can denigrate him for betting on baseball.  It was wrong.  You can say he was a Hot Dog.  But Charlie Hustle earned his name.  Likewise, I loved watching Jack Klugman’s Quincy.  He, too, ran as fast as he could into whatever brick wall stood in his way.  If I could distill their personalities into one word, it would be passion.  It is passion that I have always hoped to impress upon my children.  Find whatever you love and pursue it relentlessly. 

However, today’s heroes can no longer be recognized for their passion, but rather their popularity.  Seriously, can anybody tell me what Paris Hilton or any Kardashian, brings to society, other than manufactured drama?  P.T. Barnum said, “Without promotion something terrible happens… Nothing.”  Lady Gaga is the new Madonna, a master publicist with limited talent.  Talent and hard work has given way to reality TV, American Idol and an instant gratification mentality.  However, as alarming as this development is, there is another that is far more damning.

There is an Irish proverb that states, “If you want an audience, start a fight.”  This type of publicity is best represented by the likes of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh.  Stephen King, writing in Entertainment Weekly, called Glenn Beck, “Satan’s mentally challenged younger brother.”  Why?  Let’s review a few quotes from Mr. Beck:

“When I see a 9/11 victim family on television, or whatever, I’m just like, ‘Oh shut up’ I’m so sick of them because they’re always complaining.”

“Can you let your son’s body become the same temperature as your son’s head before you turn this into a political campaign against the president? Could you do that?”    (This to Judea Pearl following his son Daniel’s beheading at the hands of Pakistani militants)

“Not a single time have we gotten a right from Congress or from the President. We get them from God.”    (Really? Makes you wonder about the Second Amendment, doesn’t it?)

“The most used phrase in my administration if I were to be President would be, ‘What the hell you mean we’re out of missiles?’”

Mr. Limbaugh also has a litany of available quotes, but this is a blog and not a thesis.  Ironically, the Information Age has sparked a new Dark Age.  The endless availability of information has resulted in people seeking out only the information with which they agree.  If you’re a conservative, you watch Fox.  If you’re a liberal, you watch MSNBC.  CNN, probably the most balanced of these three, is suffering in the ratings because of this phenomenon.  Debate is non-existent.  Compromise a sign of weakness.

Nowhere is this chasm in conversation more evident than on the issue of guns.  Debate has been reduced to bumper sticker sound bites.  “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” “If you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns.” 

The NRA is the lobbying arm of gun manufacturers cloaked behind a bastardized interpretation of the Second Amendment and followed by a Kool-Aid drinking public.  Fact and common sense have no place in the conversation anymore.  Fact, the United States makes up 5% of the world’s population, but owns 50% of the world’s guns.  Look at this graphic from CNN.  Does anything stand out as being apart from the norm?

And yet, we can’t get Washington to approach gun control because of the fear politicians have of the NRA.  Where does it end for the NRA, .50 caliber sniper rifles to greet the mailman? Fissile material on eBay?  This paranoid mentality instilled on their flock is scary.  They believe that the Day of Confiscation is imminent, that the government is about to turn on them and subjugate them, that fascism and socialism are the new American order.  For people so concerned about the Second Amendment, they show no faith in a government that created it.  Every armory-owning yahoo is now a Constitutional scholar.  However, as the NRA was their teacher, they reduce the Amendment to an unimpeachable, fortune cookie-like “right to bear arms,” selectively forgetting the “well regulated militia” part.

It is frustrating.  Discussion dissolves into name calling and with the high ground (if not the moral high ground), the gun-owning majority dismisses a rational minority.  Congress is deadlocked on every issue, mirroring a public paralyzed by institutionally fed convictions.  We can be passionate about our convictions and open to discussion.  We are better than this.  Where are our heroes?