GUNS IN AMERICA

Another month. Another mass shooting. What's going on? What do Americans think about it? How do Americans propose to deal with the situation?

We need more guns, Some People say. More good people with guns will stop more of the bad people with guns. Odd, isn't it, that even with 300,000,000 guns in the US, it seems as though the good people are never around while the bad people are shooting? Wait a minute, Some People say. Good guys shot the bad guy at that Texas church, didn't they? Well, yeah. After the bad guy killed 26, wounded 20 more, and decided to leave the church. OK, Some People say. That means we need more guns in churches. And that gives you a clue about the brand of Christianity espoused by Some People. Beat your swords into AK-47s.

OK, Some People say. How about the latest shooting in California? California has strict gun laws. That didn't stop the shooter. But Some People forget that California's gun laws are only as strict as the Supreme Court allows. And California is bordered by Arizona and Nevada, two of the least restrictive states in the country with no permits, no registration, and no magazine restrictions.

That's really the story of the gun culture in the US. In order to justify their inordinate, almost religious love of firearms, the opponents of proposals to register and/or ban certain types of firearms and to prohibit certain classes of people from ownership are forced to wander farther and farther afield from logic and reason. They will say that the rifles of Revolutionary times were as far advanced from their predecessors as an assault rifle is from 18th Century technology and that the Founders understood this. As if the Founders had anticipated a guy walking into a church with a weapon capable of killing an entire congregation in the time that it would have taken them to fire one bullet and maybe have time to reload fire one more. They will say that the Second Amendment guarantees an absolute right to firearm ownership when every other freedom guaranteed under the Bill of Rights has been limited in one way or another from the beginning and over time as circumstances have changed. 

When it's pointed out that cars are registered, inspected, and insured and their drivers tested and licensed, Some People reply that we don't blame cars when there are fatal accidents, we blame the driver. Why should guns be different? But guns are different. Guns are different because, when used as designed, cars are not deadly weapons. When guns are used as designed, people die. And the more guns that there are, the more that people die. The most recent studies show that for every one percent increase in gun ownership there is a 0.9 percent increase in the rate of deaths by firearm.

At this point, Some People start throwing out statistics of their own, demonstrating that Some People are the Same People who find statistical anomalies to demonstrate that global warming isn't really happening, much less that there is a degree of human liability. Some People insisted that global warming had paused since 1998, an outlier year that was hotter than blazes. At least, Some People were touting a global warming pause until the last four years proved to include three of the hottest ever recorded. Some People apparently do not live in Miami where downtown streets flood every time there's an onshore breeze at high tide. Some People apparently don't live in Houston where there have been twelve catastrophic flooding events in just the past three years.

Some People are like Those People who were tobacco executives and stood in front of Congress and raised their right hands and swore under oath that there was no proof that cigarettes cause cancer. 

It's time that we let Some People know that we're mad as hell and we're not going to take any more of their pious rantings. The Constitution is not a suicide pact. And it certainly wasn't meant to prevent us from considering the safety and well-being of our children who, by the way, are shooting each other with regularity because Some People can't keep their guns out of their children's hands.

My posts of a political nature are collected HERE.

IRA'S STUPID STUFF AND A SONG - LATE AUGUST, 2016

 1. Hostess tries something new...Deep Fried Twinkies. Just what we needed...a Twinkie that is actually more unhealthy than the original. Who thinks this stuff up? Where do you apply for the job? How much do you get paid?

I've got loads of ideas. Bacon Wrapped Twinkies. Chocolate Chip Twinkies. Egg Cream Twinkies (NYC only). Grape Nehi Twinkies.

Or maybe we could go the other way. Organic Twinkies. Gluten Free Twinkies. Free Range Twinkies. Pescatarian Twinkies. The possibilities are endless.

2. The right-wing, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany political party has called for a loosening of Germany's very restrictive gun laws in light of a series of attacks by terrorists and the mentally ill. Because in the US, with about 300,000,000 guns in private hands, nobody ever gets shot by the mentally ill or terrorists...

3. The Connecticut Supreme Court says that you shouldn't be fired for smoking dope at work. Well, not exactly. Here's the deal. A maintenance worker at a Connecticut university was caught smoking dope on his break. Connecticut is not a state that has made marijuana legal. So he was fired. His union took the case to arbitration. The arbitrator said that the penalty was too harsh, that he should have been suspended without pay and, when he returned to work, subjected to random drug testing. The university appealed to the Connecticut District Court. The District Court overruled the arbitrator and OKed the firing. The union took that ruling to the state Supreme Court, which said that the arbitrator's ruling should have been final. So it's back to work for the stoned janitor.

I'm conflicted. It's clear that soon it will be legal to smoke dope in a majority of states. So what's the big deal? On the other hand, using illegal drugs on the job IS a big deal. If it had been me, I would have expected to be fired. I'm conflicted.

4. North Carolina takes its case for restrictive voter ID laws to Supreme Court. Says that it's to prevent fraud. No proof of fraud in the past is offered. Their new law is patterned after a North Carolina law passed in 1876 restricting voting by giraffes. Success. Not a single vote by a giraffe has been recorded since.

But seriously, an op-ed in Newsweek Europe quotes two Pennsylvania lawmakers as saying that fraud is rampant. They offer no proof except their opinion. The authors of the op-ed, who also offer no proof that widespread voter fraud exists, concede that voter IDs won't stop absentee ballot fraud, won't stop machines from being hacked, won't prevent hanging chads. So what the hell are we talking about?

Giraffes?

AMERICAN ELECTION BONUS: Roger Ailes joins Trump's campaign. Because Trump is already doing so well with women...

As Paul and Ringo continue to prove, The Beatles were one of the great live bands. Even at a time when they really didn't like each other very much, their vocals were tight, their playing was spot on, and they were generous enough to feature the Fifth Beatle. My heroes...

IRA'S STUPID STUFF - EARLY AUGUST, 2016

1. An NBA all-star basketball player posted a picture of his penis to the public on Instagram or Snapchat or some such. "I pushed the wrong button," he said. "It could happen to anyone." Not to me. But this sort of thing seems to happen often to NBA players. Did you see that the US Olympic team 'accidentally' had drinks in a Rio bordello? Oops...

2. Kansas elects a doctrinaire, tax-slashing governor and state legislature. After a few years, Kansas faces such a huge budget crisis that the Speaker of the Kansas State House of Representatives lost in his primary, one of about a dozen other tax-cutting conservatives in the Kansas legislature to lose their seats. Even a notorious Kansas Tea Party member of the US House of Representatives lost.

Wait a minute. That's smart stuff. Never mind...

3. Trump says that he'll keep Putin out of Ukraine. A little late for that, don't you think?

4. A Texas law allowing students to bring concealed weapons onto university campuses goes into effect on the 50th anniversary of one of the first mass shootings in American history that took place...wait for it...on a Texas university campus. If it was in any other state but Texas, you'd just know that it was a joke. It's not.

5. A spokeswoman for Trump tells CNN's Wolf Blitzer that the dead Marine whose parents have been involved in a tussle with Trump was probably killed because Obama and Hillary changed the rules of engagement in Iraq...in 2004...four years before Obama took office. You're fired! The only member of the Trump campaign allowed to lie with impunity is Trump!

6. Hillary doubles down. "The FBI says that I told the truth about the emails."  Not really. Just admit that you screwed up and move on. Or, as Krauthammer  has said, take lying lessons from Bill.

7. Florida's Governor Rick Scott demands that the federal government step up with anti-zika funding after he cuts Florida's pest research and control budget by 50%. It's the new States Rights mantra from conservatives...the states have the right to demand federal bailouts.

EXPAT BONUS: 600,000 or so recipients of retirement benefits from the American Social Security Administration were no longer able to access their online accounts as of August 1st. In order to increase cyber security, Social Security now requires you to register a text-enabled cell phone. You log in using a user name and password, they text you an access code to input. One problem. The system only allows you to register a cellphone with an American telephone number. Either the government can't figure out how to accommodate 600,000 foreign-residing recipients, doesn't realize that foreign-residing recipients were being locked out of the system, or just doesn't care. Either way, stupid.

#23 - ANOTHER GUN RANT

CHRISTIAN SELF DEFENSE
A guy walks into a church and threatens the pastor with a brick. The pastor pulls out his Glock and shoots the guy multiple times, killing him.


That's all. Isn't that enough?


 

TODDLER MURDERERS
Over 40 murders have been committed by toddlers this year.


 Call me out, if you will. Insist that the deaths at the hands of the toddlers who find guns and shoot people with them are are not murders but are accidental deaths. Then you will say that accidental deaths and suicides should not count when discussing gun violence. Then you will say that when you take out what doesn't count, what's left are people with mental illness and drug-related murders. And therefore what is needed is more guns in the hands of good people to protect us from the sickos and the druggies. 

Pfui!


Let's be clear. The deaths of children, murders at the hands of children, by accident or murderous intent, are less important to you than your guns. Just admit it.

BAN KNIVES
An internet meme recently popular with the gun-loving crowd is that five times as many people are murdered with knives as are murdered with rifles. So why not ban knives?

This is simply shameless cherry picking. Yeah, it's true. But it's also true that five times as many people are murdered with handguns as with knives. And that's not taking into account the accidental deaths and suicides by handguns. (Toddlers have 'murdered' at least 43 people this year while playing with handguns.)

In fact, about 70% of all murders are committed with firearms.

Hillary recently said that we should look into mandatory buybacks of the type that Australia conducted after their worst mass killing. Imagine that. One of the squirreliest politicians on the national scene actually talking about not just regulating, but reducing the number of guns in the hands of Americans.

Could it be true? Will we start going after the guns? Wouldn't that be interesting?

#22 - HOW DID WE GET SO STUPID?

It's no longer funny. We're stupid. Americans are stupid. That's not to say that idiocy is an exclusively American trait. But we're damn close to qualifying for a patent.

Stay with me. If you don't like what I say at first, I'm certain to really piss you off later.

LINDSEY GRAHAM AND FLOOD AID
The man is running for President, voted against increased federal funding for the Northeast in the wake of SuperStorm Sandy, and is asking for federal aid after flooding in his state from Hurricane Joaquin. Huh? Does he think that nobody notices this kind of shit?

Does he think that we are that stupid? Or is he that stupid?

Probably both.



GUNS 
Tell me truthfully. You like guns, don't you? That's really what it's about with you. You like the noise they make, the way that they shred targets at the range, the feel of the steel in your hand when your dick isn't in it.

How many deaths will it take 'til we know that too many people have died? The answer to the latest mass shooting is more guns? Seriously? 350,000,000 guns is not enough guns? They've managed to warp your intellect to the point that you do not understand or care that having a gun in your house is many times more likely to kill you, a family member, or an innocent stranger than an intruder.

In fact, he statistical reality is that for every justifiable homicide in the United States - for every lethal shooting in defense of life or property - guns are used to commit 34 murders, 78 suicides, and are the cause of two accidental deaths. (FBI data quoted by the Washington Post.)

If you are a responsible gun owner and keep your guns locked in a safe, how useful will it really be when the zombies break the glass? And if it's in your bedside table, how much would you be willing to bet me that your kid hasn't already pulled it out and played with it? Let's ask him.

Or maybe your answer is that guns don't kill people. People kill people.

PEOPLE KILL PEOPLE WITH GUNS!

And I'm sorry, but the majority of mass murderers are not mentally ill and a majority of mass murderers obtained their guns legally. So don't deflect by bringing up mental illness. And don't deflect by bringing up the futility of gun laws. Make it hard work to become a mass murderer with guns and I agree that folks will find different ways to demonstrate that they are antisocial, maybe by putting on body armor and entering a school building with the intention of tickling a bunch of people until they laugh themselves to death.

Owning a gun is a Constitutional right, you argue? According to the Constitution, you could drink liquor...until the Constitution said that you couldn't...until the Constitution said that you could again. Sane people can change their minds.

So I'm sorry. If you think that the answer is more guns, you are simply no longer rational. You've been bent by the propaganda.

FIORINA
Hewlett-Packard missed a majority of its earnings projections at the end of Fiorina's tenure. It's stock tanked by a greater percentage than its closest competitors when the tech bubble burst. It's acquisition of Compaq was the only thing that kept its corporate head above water. But you tell me, how many HP/Compaq products do you own today? Fiorina says that HP's Board made a mistake when it fired her. But the day after Fiorina was fired, the markets were so happy that the value of the company increased by $3 billion!

Fiorina is therefore a highly qualified candidate for President?

Or try this. When discussing Planned Parenthood during the recent televised debate, Fiorina urged the Obama to view a video of an aborted fetus. But the video wasn't the one created by the folks attempting to trash Planned Parenthood. In fact, the fetus in the video had nothing to do with Planned Parenthood. In fact, the fetus had nothing to do with abortion. The fetus was the product of a miscarriage. "Technicality," claims Fiorina.

THAT'S what qualifies Fiorina for the Presidency, the ability to inflate her resume and lie with a straight face.

And by the way, the number of states that have investigated Planned Parenthood since this business began is up around twelve. Not one investigation has turned up any wrongdoing. If Missouri can't make a case, nobody can. 

COPS OR DEMONSTRATORS - GUNS OR BUTTER: FALSE DICHOTOMIES

We have become tribal and, in the process, become binary. Ones or Zeros. Yes or No. Pro or Con. We define each other through simple answers to complex questions. Such thinking, dividing ourselves in this way, is not in our own best interests.

That's not to say that there are no absolutes. I am not one of those who believes that being human means to think in shades of gray, that everything is relative, that there is no right or wrong, no good and no evil. I have my red lines. Red lines are healthy. They require us to think critically and make rational, informed judgements. But today I'm talking about the false dichotomies, questions that look as though they can be answered simply but that are in truth designed to force us to abandon critical thinking in favor of tribal fervor.

GUNS OR BUTTER

The Vietnam War shaped much of my geopolitical thinking. It seemed to me that it was foolhardy to think that, as the new kids on the block, Americans could do better in southeast Asia than the French, who had been in the business of colonialism for quite awhile. I have never had reason to doubt that simple analysis. Afghanistan, anyone? And today there are more hotels listed in Hanoi on the popular travel website TripAdvisor than are listed in Chicago.

At the time, when the War on Poverty was competing for funding with the Vietnam War, Guns or Butter? became a popular question to ask. It was not a new question. Eisenhower perhaps laid it out most starkly: "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."

Your answer marked you. Guns? Warmonger. Butter? Peacenik.

But with respect to Ike, the dichotomy is a false one. Putting aside the question of the fairness of the current tax code when it comes to funding our government and putting aside the waste/fraud/abuse in both the Pentagon and the Department of Health and Human Services when it comes to spending our tax dollars, we are a rich enough country to afford sufficient quantities of guns and butter to both defend ourselves vigorously and feed ourselves comfortably. Regardless of the current binary situation in Washington, we needn't cut the budget of the Pentagon in order to properly fund HHS. It is not a zero sum game, though game we have apparently allowed it to become in our march toward tribalism.

Our elected officials simply need to make sane judgements regarding our tax code and our spending priorities, in our decisions concerning war and peace, untainted by the influences of campaign funding and temptations of wealth and power. Simple, right?

COPS OR DEMONSTRATORS

Questions regarding our system of criminal justice are among the most emotional of the moment. Male black Americans are in statistically dangerous territory when it comes to being stopped by the police, charged with a crime, found guilty of a crime, and/or incarcerated. Such constant and contentious contact with law enforcement inevitably leads to frustration and violence on both sides. There are two factors at work here, neither of them pretty.

First, racism exists. It exists at all levels of our society. Don't argue. It does. This is one of those red lines that I talked about. Racism exists. Denying that racism exists is either racist itself or just stupid. Police and the court system are not immune.

Second, police cause crime, particularly in impoverished and segregated black communities. That's not to suggest that all police, or most or even a plurality, are criminals. Not at all. But 50 years ago, Malcolm X predicted the scenario that's being played out today. He pointed out that even then, when an incident occurred in Harlem, however minor, swarms of police responded, multiples of the number that would respond to similar incidents in other parts of the city. But more aggressive policing did not and does not lead to a community feeling a sense of safety. On the contrary, communities feel threatened. In the face of an increasingly militarized police, the threatened communities either exhibit the self-destructive rage of the powerless or feel the need to take steps, however futile, to protect themselves. Hence the demonstrations and the misdirected violence, both inner directed and directed toward law enforcement.

As the demonstrations and the level of violence and the ever more shrill reporting in the media of that violence mounts, we get the false dichotomy question: Do you support the cops or the demonstrators?

Cops? Racist. Demonstrators? Anarchist.

Now that's just stupid. We are a nation of laws, laws that protect individuals from the bad acts of other individuals. We need strong, active, skilled policing. Who else you gonna call? Ghostbusters?

But because we are a nation of laws, we are also protected from bad actors who act in the name of the government. And that includes cops. In the words of John Marshall, the first Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court: "The government of the United States has been emphatically termed a government of laws, and not of men. It will certainly cease to deserve this high appellation if the laws furnish no remedy for the violation of a vested legal right."

It is possible, logical, and downright American to support our police forces while condemning excessive behavior by individual police officers.

So where does this leave us? I submit that we are left with the necessity of viewing any number of issues that have been presented to us with less binary, more critical thinking. Israel or Palestine? Carbon-based or renewable? Flat tax or progressive rates? There are many such issues that have been used by cynical manipulators to divide us. It's time to look at each with fresh eyes. Stay tuned for a discussion of the flat tax versus a progressive rate tax code.