I haven't ranted about gun control in a long time, and I really don't plan to do so again because the policy argument boils down to "Really!? You actually think more guns are a good idea?"
Anyway, just in case you somehow missed the headlines, the Supreme Court finally ruled on the meaning of the Second Amendment, and now has come down (5-4 of course) on the side of an individual right to bear arms, an interpretation that has never been legally accepted in this country (despite the NRA's extraordinarily effective effort to convince Americans that the Constitution guaranteed that right).
Of course the decision probably isn't as simple as flatly guaranteeing all people the right to have guns, but I still dejectedly, and unsurprisingly, sigh "WTF." I may actually take the time to read this opinion later, but the fact that Justice Scalia wrote this one makes me none too enthusiastic about what I'm going to find.
As a general note, although it it has been flying under the radar thus far, I think one of the most important issues in the upcoming election, if not THE most important issue, is the judiciary: Ginsburg is 75, Stevens is 88, and Souter apparently wants out. If McCain wins, and his posturing and previous positions on the judiciary truly reflect his views, we're talking about a possible 8-1 conservative voting bloc for the next generation. And the consequences are definitely much bigger than abortion and whatever other mindless issues the electorate has been convinced the Court is about. This is legitimately terrifying.
15 comments:
1.) Not going to enter the gun debate, but I' glad my side won one. Sweet.
2.) McCain judiciary, sweet. Lochner, Lochner, Lochner! No more unreasonable, unnecessary and arbitrary interference with the right and liberty of the individual to contract by the government!
3.)
Zimbabwe is indeed troubling. Much like Tibet, Burma, Darfur, it has become a distinctly nasty place (to understate it). What is perhaps the most troubling, is the vast difference between what the world's expressed concern about these places, and what the world actually does.
Simply look at the response to the Darfur crisis in our Congress alone. The Darfur Peace and Accountability Act sanctions officals indentified as responsible for the genocide. House Resolution 992 urged the president to appoint a special envoy to the Sudan. In 2007, the Sudan Accountability and Divestment Act gave states and municipalities the opportunity to divest from companies doing business in Sudan. Senate resolution 559 urged the PResident to enforce the Darfur no-fly zone. We also have the Jackson Amendment, the Lieberman Resolution, the Peace in Darfur Act, the Clinton Amendment, the Reid Amendment, the Mendez Amendment, the Durbin Leahy Amendment and the Obama/Reid Amendment.
The result? 200,000 dead at least since 2006 (although the UN upped that figure another 100,000 last month).
Obama's opinion: the genocide is a stain upon our souls. His idea to stop the slaughter. "Rachet up the sanctions", and "firm commitments in terms of logistics, and the transport and the equipping" of an internation peacekeeping mission for Darfur.
It seems we are headed down a similar path in Zimbabwe. Sanctions, resolution, and alot more killing.
But I have a solution. Someone must remove Mugabe by force (the only way he'll go). Put in Tsvangirai, arm his supporters, prevent any rampage, and leave. Apply military force to the degree necessary to get the Sudan to come to terms. Same thing in Burma.
There is a name for this solution, an international relations theory known as the "Responsbility to Protect". Indeed, Susan Rice (an Obama advisor), has backed up the Responsibility to Protect doctrine.
So let's end the handwringing, sanction passing, speechifying nonsense, and embrace the responsibility to protect, wherever necessary and feasible. Based on recent statements, this seems to be the foreign policy approach Obama is starting to tip-toe towards.
And its a worthy one.
Who is this? I'd normally delete immediately, but this one's a bit long. 1 and 2 seem distinctly RS-ian. 3 does not (except for the suggestion of arming opposition).
And did you REALLY just invoke Lochner as a good thing? Are you SERIOUS? And THREE TIMES?
Oh yeah, sorry, I forget to sign sometimes.
RS
And the Lochner endorsement was in jest. Well, not entirely in jest, but somewhat.
Ok. Cool. No need to delete.
And thank god the Lochner endorsement was at least semi in-jest...because I was just about to try and devise a way to throw a chair at you from here (not to mention how fundamentally it conflicts with judicial conservatism with regards to legislative deference).
I mean, even *Bork * called it an abomination.
You so just checked the Wikipedia entry for Lochner.
RS
did not. i just googled "Bork Lochner" because I remember reading about McCain's judicial philosophy a while back and somehow stumbled across references to Bork and picked up that fact.
I also don't know any of those legislative amendments you're referring to. I'm actually a little unsettled as to how I think these foreign countries should be dealt with...particularly after living abroad and considering what's happening in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I have to say though, your concern for suffering abroad is very uncharacteristic of how I understand your politics. What am I missing?
Not really. I'm suggested a military solution to humanitarian concerns. What's odd about that?
The sense of human decency divorced from economic self-interest.
But what I'm advocating also obligates us to stay in Iraq, no? Indeed such a military solution to humanitarian concerns justifies our entry into Iraq as well.
RS
I don't think we can pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan either, but I think that's not the same as whether it justifies going in. And clearly, our going in had absolutely, positively, assuredly, without a doubt, NOTHING to do with why we went in.
I ended sentences with prepositions twice.
Mugabe: i can't help but laugh at the phrase "military solution." reminds me of "regime change." just say murder, it's shorter and who likes euphemisms these days. anyway I don't think that's a particularly new idea, the CIA has done it for years to varying results.
guns: Did you hear about that thing in Tokyo where a crazy student ran into the Ueno Museum of Art and shot up the place? Killed 17 people. No, you didn't. Cause it didn't happen. It didn't happen cause guns are illegal in Japan.
...I wish we could uninvent them.
Cor-rect.
(Although I will say ramming a truck into a crowded intersection, jumping out and stabbing 17 people, and the bleach suicide trend make almost render guns not crazy enough for the Japanese.)
Since Jeff found reason to critique my statement on a military solution to humanitarian concerns, and to open up the gun debate, I feel free to address both issues:
Military Solution:
Nowhere in my proposal did I advocate political assassination, and to accuse me of advocating a 1950’s CIA style operation is to misconstrue my statements. By military solution, I mean military peacekeeping force. Preferably, Mugabe would be tried for his crimes against humanity by the Hague/UN. There are codes of justice for a reason, and nowhere in my polemic did I ever support, mention, or even hint at political assassination. Attach hypothetical euphemisms to my words if you think it helps your case, but it seriously misconstrues any statement I’ve made.
And Jeff, since you’ve taken umbrage at my words, I would request you to propose your own solution. Clearly sanctions, be they UN or otherwise, haven’t worked (See e.g. Burma and Darfur). And clearly, doing nothing about the situation is clearly, in the words of Obama, “a stain upon our souls”, and thousands more die. So Jeff, if you seek to criticize, present me with your own solution.
Guns:
In counter to your thoughts on guns, I put forth that guns clearly deter crime. Let’s take a look at Mayor Daley of Chicago, who has spoken out many times about controlling guns. Still, he has gun-toting bodyguards. I challenge Mayor Daley to set foot in some of Chicago’s more notorious neighborhoods without his bodyguards. But the people who live in those areas, mostly the poor, face continuing danger, and yet people like Mayor Daley (and you), don’t want them to be able to protect themselves.
Now, we all know that the police are supposed to prevent crime right? But when was the last time you heard a police stopping a crime before it happened? Usually, the police show up after the crime was committed, and attempt to hunt down the criminal. The best protection for a person being attacked is not to yell for a policeman whose likely too far away to help, but rather to reach for a concealed weapon. Further, since so many crimes are never solved, I would contend that the possibility that one’s intended victim is carrying a gun is even more of a deterrent than the potential that one would get caught by the police.
In fact, there is empirical proof for this. John Lott, a Yale economist, studied the effects of gun control laws in municipalities around the country over a 20 year period. Lott’s findings are striking. When counties pass right to carry laws, which allow people of sound mind who have no criminal records to carry guns, their crime rates go down. Moreover, when counties make it more difficult for their law abiding citizens to carry guns, their crime rates go up. The reason isn’t merely that gun owners are in a position to defend themselves, but in addition, criminals are more likely to be deterred when they don’t know who is armed and who is not. I suggest you read Lott’s study, its entitled More Gun, Less Crime.
RS
I'm not Jeff, but...
Uh. First, I'm going to say that you're misconstruing his words. I think he was referring to the use of force, i.e., murder.
Second, your gun argument relies on the fact that deterrence works. And then you try to argue that the police are ineffective because they show up after the fact, in short, that the principles of deterrence don't apply to law, law enforcement, and the police. That's kinda weird, don't you think?
As for your last argument: hahahahaha.
In 5 minutes, I found that John Lott also wrote the recent book "Freedomnomics: Why the Free Markets Work and other Half-Baked Theories Don't," that his studies were funded by groups closely tied to firearm manufacturers, and also this fact:
In 2004, the National Academy of Sciences conducted a review of current research and data on firearms and violent crime, including Lott's work, and found that "there is no credible evidence that 'right-to-carry' laws, which allow qualified adults to carry concealed handguns, either decrease or increase violent crime." So that puts us right back where we started.
Anyway, I think you're right. And I also think we can crack this meth problem by flooding the streets with more of it.
hah! i forgot about that bleach suicide thing. and there was also the toxic gas attack in the subways a while back.
RS:yah, I guess I was a bit unclear about the whole Mugabe thing. Just the same, when I hear "military solution," it conjures up this image of a whole bunch of armed people going in and killing a whole bunch of entrenched armed people. But you're right, going into the country the guy runs and waltzing into his office with a peace keeping force and arresting him in the name of international law would work really well. Assuming he'll go peacefully.
My solution? Well the US has all but killed the sway of the UN, which was a baby institution anyway. It did this by acting as the world police and going around international law, which seems to be what you're suggesting we do again. Better yet- give everyone over there more guns! That way the violence will stop. To be fair, tho the genocide in Rwanda was committed entirely with machetes. This is a horrifying fact. And yes, guns aren't the cause of all violence obviously.
My favorite case is the madman in Britain who ran into a church completely nude, brandishing a sword, and started attacking everyone. He was overtaken almost immediately, injuring only one person. The trouble with guns is the potential for high body counts from one single source, the inability to defend oneself, and mainly- the immediate power. A gun is a deathstick. That kind of power given to a certain kind of person is wrong. And no amount of stats or screenings can prove what kind of person that is.
In any case, my solution to the genocide problem (since I'm obviously well qualified to offer one having a BFA in Film and Television) is :
1) Repair international politics. This discussion helps my case: we are rational people having a level-headed discussion about the state of things, presenting opinions and backing them up with what we've got. Geopolitics is like children on a fucking playground. While civilians get more and more interconnected through web and a mutual understanding of "life on the ground," politicians get more and more lost in this other world with obsolete rules and ass-backwards priorities. I have a friend that worked in the U.N. a few months after 9-11. I don't really have specific stories but the jist I got was that everything was a vie for money or power.
Take Darfur. Two nearby nations that can offer more help than the US- China and Russia. They are the 2 biggest opponents of helping- because they have oil assets in place in the Sudan. Hooray humanity. SO, scrap all geopolitical politics in place. Rip apart the UN. Gut it. Rebuild it using Godelian logic- avoid unchecked self-reference. Include all nations by default. All economic, political, and historical analysis done independently with checks and balances in place by committee or subcommittee individually representing each country. New jobs, new way of doing things, just a thought. It is, after all, the 21st century and here I am ashamed to call myself a human.
The 2nd option is complete 'cultural fugue.' Annihilation. Kill everyone. Problems solved.
I do not trust statistics. I know enough about it to know that without reading the entirety of the findings you can miss important information gaps and omissions in the study.
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