Insuring Gun Rights

It appears as though the window for meaningful regulations of guns has closed, if indeed it were ever open more than a hair's breadth. The well organized lobby called the National Rifle Association, with help from some other organizations, has moved to quickly re-frame the debate on its own terms, and using a mixture of false fears and misinformation to obscure facts and drown out voices of moderation. From a purely academic standpoint their polished demolition of a majority viewpoint is as nearly perfect as anything I've seen, and only my deep disagreement with them keeps me from leaping to my feet with full fledged approbation.

I have mentioned in my earlier post on this topic that the NRA is not an organization that represents gun owners, despite all their posturing to the contrary - it represents the interests of gun manufacturers and gun sellers. Unfortunately, the strong hatred for the political players lined up on the side of gun control blinds people to this very obvious fact. Nothing in the NRA's actual position aids law-abiding gun owners, but the various changes in legislation that they have supported - fewer background checks, no inventory keeping by gun sellers, exempting gun shows from laws on background checks and waiting periods - all help in selling ever more guns to a country that already outguns most of the world (it speaks volumes when Somalia may be one of the few nations that can claim better gun penetration across its population, pun unintended). The NRA taps into an irrational fear of the federal government, maybe even into deeper and darker parts of the mind, when they argue that gun sellers should be allowed to destroy records of gun sales within a day; no other industry has anything approaching that attitude towards records. Tellingly, the fear that the government will use this information to find those who would oppose its potential tyranny does not extend to outrage over, say, warrant-less spying on one's communications or the fact that health insurance companies and credit rating companies (to cite but a couple of examples) collect a lot of information about us and for most part, we don't even question what they know about us or with whom they share this information, including possibly the much maligned federal government. What the NRA does achieve is a world in which it is easy for criminals or straw buyers acting for criminals to freely obtain guns - so much for protecting the rights of law-abiding citizens!

One of the tropes advanced on many forums debating gun control was the argument that more people die per year in auto accidents than from gun homicides, so cars should be banned before guns. This is a false argument on many different levels, since it starts with a conflation of accidental and intentional killing. But more interesting in the choice of this analogy is that these partisans would have been hard pressed to find a more regulated segment than automobiles. They are strongly regulated from the design and manufacturing phase, through every step thereafter. There are laws against driving while drunk, driving and texting, driving underage, driving with an expired license, for starters. One cannot legally drive without a license, and to obtain a license one needs to demonstrate one's expertise in driving. When stopped by the police, for any actual transgression or suspected problem, a driver has to show his license, or face strictures for that failure even if nothing else is blameworthy. And every driver is required to maintain insurance to cover damage that he may, or may not cause while driving. This is actually a perfect idea, and I owe the plan I lay out below to the gun rights advocates who first drew my attention to the level of regulation we accept on cars and the parallels that they see between car and gun ownership. (Not surprising perhaps, given the Bushmaster advertisement that suggested owning an assault rifle conferred a man card upon the owner; in another version, that would have been a Mustang, Camaro or pickup truck).

If there is one thing the Roberts Supreme Court has upheld consistently, it is the power of corporations and their status above individuals. While I strongly disagree with the idea philosophically, I see an opportunity to use this concept towards regulation of guns, along with the concept enshrined in the Court's ruling regarding the Affordable Care Act. Simply put, I suggest that all guns be insured against the damage that they can potentially wreak. Let me clarify that the insurance is on the gun, not the gun owner. The key reason is that the gun must be insured from the moment it rolls off an assembly line (if locally made) or the instant it enters a US entry port. The moment the weapon is sold to a gun dealer, the onus for maintaining insurance can be transferred to the dealer or retained by the original party - I do not forsee many companies choosing that option, even less their insurance companies. Similarly the dealer is free to transfer ownership of the insurance policy along with ownership of the gun to his buyer, or he may choose to trust his buyers will never use their guns on other people without good and unimpeachable cause. The same rule holds for any sale of the gun, with no exceptions.

Some advantages of this are immediately obvious. Libertarians who fear the reach of the government and its intrusion into their private lives have fewer qualms over the same power in the hands of private companies and corporations. The level of regulation required over the sales will now be determined not in Washington but in the opaque boardrooms of Omaha and Charlotte and Wilmington. The greatest fear of Constitutionalists, that their right to bear arms enshrined in their reading of the Second Amendment, will be set at rest, since the law does not prevent anyone, not even Son of Sam, from buying a gun, so long as he or she can pay the insurance rates on it.  In my mind, the actual intent of the Second Amendment can be further strengthened by offering waivers or reduced insurance needs for militias that can meet the definition of "well-regulated"; in essence, weapons for the police or National Guard would not need to be insured to the same level as those in the hands of the Hutaree. 

However, in fairness to Branch Davidians and their ilk, the insurance amount on guns will be predicated only on the gun itself, not the owner. There is a challenge in determining the correct amount of insurance required, especially when the aim is to keep the amount within reason that can be serviced by private insurance companies. My starting thought for this would be the potential destructive power of the weapon. Obviously a small handgun, a shotgun or a hunting rifle have limited use in mass killings and would carry a smaller coverage than the now infamous AR-15 Bushmaster. Determining a good coverage amount is a job for actuaries (maybe?) and underwriters, and I have no doubt that they will crunch through the numbers and figure out a formula that combines population, per capita gun ownership, annual gun homicide rates, lost earning due to premature death and tooth fairy taxes. This amount would then be applied to every privately owned gun in the US, and to every gun being manufactured, offered for sale or being imported. In the event that a weapon is used in any crime, the insurance would be shared amongst the victims and/or their next of kin. One advantage, one that would really bring lawyers over to support this, is that even accident victims like Dick Cheney's unfortunate hunting partner would stand to gain when mistaken for a quail and shot in the face.

I appeal to the free market supporters on this idea. The insurance companies can evaluate the risk of say a large gun dealership, look at their safety methods and attention to inventor keeping and set a very low rate or a high rate that reflects the risk that a weapon will be sold improperly. This provides an incentive to the dealer to follow better practices and sell only to those customers who can take over the weapon liability. In turn, when seeking to buy a gun, an individual would have to convince his insurance company that he is not a risk. He may be required to provide mental health certification, and private insurers may ask for periodical certificates - it's important to emphasize that these checks would be between the individual and his insurance company only. If an insurer wishes to ban its customers from carrying their guns out of their houses, that too would be between the two private entities, and the government's role would start and end with requiring that the gun be insured at all times. As I said before, if a dealer trusts his strawbuyer client, he may retain ownership of the insurance, but he would face claims if any of those weapons was used in a crime subsequently - his insurance company may require a much higher premium for the risk involved or may refuse him permission to sell without transferring liability. On the flip side, the insurance company may very well offer big discounts for a dealer that has a waiting period on purchases, or performs detailed background checks, or one that ensures the buyer has insurance before handing over a weapon. (In part the need for waiting periods and background checks are based on the idea that dealers, similar to car dealerships, may offer a 30 day insurance period to the buyer).

In much the same vein, the individual may obtain discounts on their insurance by showing that they keep their guns securely. I envision insurance rates for existing gun owners being very low if they can show a long and responsible history of ownership - in other words for most gun owners. I also imagine most hunting weapons and smaller caliber pistols being either waived or covered for very low rates, given that they can be used in homicides (see the latest high profile case from Arizona and the on-going hostage standoff in Alabama), but they cause comparatively less death and destruction. I also foresee insurance companies offering reducing rates (similar to auto insurance models) based on history and discounts for people who can demonstrate safe practices and attendance of gun safety classes, again similar to auto insurance discounts for defensive driving classes and the like.

No proposal would be universally hailed, and gun owners would likely grumble at any rule that increases their bills for owning weapons. But given that this neither constrains one's rights under the Second Amendment, nor increases the role of government in our lives, I see it as the simplest means to reducing gun violence. It would have a very small impact on the vast majority of gun owners, but it would go a long way to reducing the vast number of guns available to criminals. I will, I admit, increase the cost of owning a gun, but that may be a small price to pay for reducing the overall level of gun violence.

A Call From Arms

In the month since the Newtown, CT massacre, emotions have surged and ebbed, and as is my practice in such emotionally charged issues, I've waited a while before addressing it in my blog. While it appeared, in the first days after the killings, that the sheer horror of seeing a score of elementary school kids cut down in their schoolrooms would lead to a raft of overdue regulations to take some of the tools of mass execution out of the hands of would-be killers, with each passing day the chances of any meaningful legislation reduce rapidly. In a world of the twenty four news cycle,  even a tragedy of this magnitude cannot long hold our attention, especially when the national news is devoted to the never ending manufactured drama of the national debt and budget deficit, and predictably the first excitement has faded and with it the burst of energy to take on the entrenched interests of the gun industry has rapidly dissipated.

No discussion on gun control is complete without a mention of the National Rifle Association, which has only just reached five million members. That's not a small number, of course, but it represents only about a tenth of the total number of gun owners in the country. On the other hand their political power is far beyond their membership numbers suggest, all the more amazing when one considers that they don't seem to represent the interests of gun owners so much as those of gun manufacturers and sellers. Yet the legislature is largely beholden to them, and every presidential candidate has to profess his love for guns and his commitment to the right to own. The NRA and other gun rights groups have chipped away at controls and regulations, even used the courts to overturn laws they oppose, in the name of freedom and the rights of the Second Amendment. Members, and gun owning non-members have followed along, reading docilely from the script they've been handed and apparently driven by an irrational fear instilled in them by their handlers, and rarely stopping to actually question the actual dangers to their way of life.

The most amazing thing is that NRA seems to have abandoned their gun-owning individual members a long time ago, and now seem only to care about the rights, and profits, of the gun manufacturers and sellers. There is no other explanation for their opposition to background checks, their opposition to tracking gun sellers' inventories, their support for destruction of the records within twenty four hours and above all, their opposition to any restrictions on who can buy guns. Ironically, they always cloak their motives as protection of the rights of law abiding citizens. Yet all these policies they endorse have nothing to do with law abiding citizens and everything to do with selling guns at all  costs, to anyone and everyone. The NRA's favorite argument in favor of guns for law-abiding citizens' access to weapons is to protect themselves from criminals, who will have guns anyhow; an amazingly prescient argument, since the NRA does their best to ensure that those criminals will be able to buy guns whenever they want. It's a logic that benefits only those providing guns. As an interesting comparison, in many even most states, convicted (and even suspected to be convicted) felons lose their right to vote (and those convicted of sexual crimes, even be it urinating in public, can lose all rights to privacy), but they retain their right, or at least their ability to buy guns, in world of "don't ask, don't tell" between buyer and seller.

I concede that if the most radical of gun control proponents had their way, there would be a lot of guns to collect and destroy. On the other hand, almost no one believes that such a sea change is practical, or even necessary; and even fervent believers in gun control such as I know that anything so radical would be tantamount to plunging the nation into chaos and bloodshed, hardly the end result desired. We may not believe in the need for any normal individual to own a gun, or ten, but we see the answer in education, not confiscations. Unfortunately, the most influential voices on the gun rights lobby refuse to accept that reality and either truly believe or cynically profess to believe that their rights to own guns are threatened, and their followers appear to buy into it rather wholeheartedly.

Most control proponents disagree with gun rights believers over the reading of the Second Amendment - indeed, millions of pages have been devoted to the correct interpretation of that one little sentence - but let us leave that argument for another time and grant a universal right to own firearms. Why is it then so impossible to find some common ground, based on common sense? No one, surely, wishes to see more deaths by guns (I would hope) and surely the basic interests of gun owners can be met while still ensuring civic safety in a practical manner; I emphasize practical, since there are some suggestions that the way to safety in schools is either bullet proof vests for the children (talk about a Dystopian scenario) or armed faculty or guards. The single biggest regulation required would cover high capacity gun magazines - does this in fact infringe on the normal gun owner? Would a lack of assault weapons - high rate of fire, high capacity magazines - really affect the vast majority of gun owners, or any legal owners in their professed needs?

To the best of my knowledge there are three main reasons that people own guns, viz. personal defense, hunting and protection against a tyrannical government. In the case of protection, whether in one's home or even for those partisans who claim a right to carry their guns at all times (again a topic that is best left for another time), the most effective weapons are pistols and shotguns. One rarely sees cases of home invasions or muggings deterred by individual with M-16 rifles; even in such cases as homeowners do defend their castles with assault rifles, it seems more like an overkill than a necessity, with the exception, of course, of those trapped in Precinct 13 on that fateful night. My intellectual twin, who couldn't agree less with me on almost any topic under the sun, is possibly the only hunter I know who claims to need an assault rifle to hunt hogs, but most other hunters seem to prefer weapons that are better at killing animals than human beings, or in other words, hunting rifles or shotguns; and I'm almost certain that Dick Cheney's hunting partners, like Harry Whittington, are strongly opposed to hunting with assault rifles.

Which brings us to the last reason for owning weapons. the one often touted by those on the far edges of the political spectrum: citizens need their guns to protect themselves from the tyranny of the government. This latest idea has been trotted out on Fox TV recently, suggesting that it is the new normal on the rightwing, but few of those advocating this position seem to really think through the argument. Let us set aside for a moment the very great differences between the times in which the Constitution was framed and the world we live in today - the men who wrote that document lived in a world of muskets, not automatic rifles. Perhaps even more importantly, the framers envisioned a citizen militia for national defense, and did not support the invention of a permanent professional army - again, an idea that was reasonable in the days it was written, but long since overtaken by a changing world. But let us set aside these lacunae, and focus only on the practical aspects of opposing the potential tyranny of the government in today's world. Let us even entertain, for academic purposes, the suspicion of the government, so rampant amongst owners of assault rifles and like weapons. Let us pretend that the government is in fact out to usurp our liberties and that we need to fight back against tyranny, even though I see no credible evidence of this happening in the way envisioned by these partisans. The fact is that weapons alone, even the powerful semi-automatic rifles available to everyone today, are far less important in withstanding State repression than their owners believe. Not only is the State (any functioning country really) possessed of far greater firepower than its civilians could muster - especially when the State in this case commands the might of the US military - but their advantages over would-be resistance fighters really lies in their command and control systems, their organization and dedicated communication networks, and their control over the wider communication systems. This is what has helped the Assad regime retain power in Syria, and that regime's gradual loss of control over those levers of power to their opponents is leading to their demise. It is why governments from Iran to Egypt have countered popular protests with a shut down of the internet and other public communications, and their successes in those endeavors have determined the success or failure of the protests against them.

Freedom must be protected, even in the freest of societies, but it is not defended with guns or swords. Those who think that they can take on the government with their personal weapons are fooling themselves - of course, most of those who seek to defend themselves against their government in the United States are living in an illusory world already. They suspect their government of sinister motives where none exist, and close their eyes to the actual constraints upon their freedom. These patriots fear the jack-booted minions of the government, seeking to tear their guns from them, when the real weapon of freedom is information. The power to know the truth of the workings of our government is the real shield against government tyranny, the ability to mobilize public opinion, share ideas and information is our real defense against a government's attempt to usurp our rights. Guns, especially in the hands of a disorganized mob, are of no avail and would do more harm than good, while a free press and open channels of communication are what keep our government servants, not masters of the citizenry.

Governments, especially tyrannical ones but even democratic ones, may like to keep their population's access to weapons limited, but they do not fear their armed citizens; they only fear informed and questioning citizenry. It is no coincidence that governments, everywhere, seek to draw a curtain over their actions and keep their secrets from the people they purport to serve. Guns do not compel transparency in governments, but ceaseless vigilance by citizens and the Fourth Estate does. A study of access to weapons in the populations of different nations showed no great co-relation between weapons and freedom. The USA leads the world in gun ownership, and staunchly democratic and liberal nations like Switzerland rank up there with it; however so do nations like Iraq, even under Saddam Hussein, Afghanistan and Somalia, which leave a lot to be desired by way of liberty. Nations like Japan enjoy the same level of freedom without a high percentage of armed citizens. Perhaps most telling in the argument regarding the importance of guns to liberty are the cases of Libya, Egypt and Tunisia - nations that have risen against dictators. Libya had plenty of weapons in the hands of its people, yet the forces of the state rapidly crushed the local militias and were stopped only by the more powerful air forces of Europe and the US. By contrast, Tunisia, and to a lesser extent Egypt had very low numbers of armed citizens, but overthrew their dictatorial governments through largely peaceful mobilization of huge swaths of the the population. Guns played next to no role in overthrowing the tyrants, while information and communication was king.

In conclusion, I may say that I see no overwhelming need for citizens to own the kind of assault weapons that so many gun proponents demand as a right. I'll concede that they may have a Constitutional right to weapons even (though I have never bought into that narrow reading of the Second Amendment) but if they see their weapons as protecting their freedom, they delude themselves. There has been no attempt to reduce the proliferation of guns in decades, while numerous rules have greatly expanded access to powerful weapons. The continued paranoia about government tyranny in the face of all facts would be merely pathetic, except that it has also placed this country far ahead of the rest of the world in every category of gun related violence and death. Guns may be cool to shoot, and I cannot help but wonder if in the case of military-style assault weapons, they also help the owners compensate for other shortcomings and feelings of inadequacy. But given the number of avoidable deaths, is the price too high?

Lamenting the Death of Conservatism

The 2012 general election was widely expected to be a blowout conservative victory -  at least in conservative circles. The right wing blogs, radio talk show hosts and television talking heads were certain that the president was going to lose, ending the brief chapter that interrupted the conservative story of this century. And history was on their side - the president had failed to turn the economy around, and his argument that he'd inherited an economy in shambles and faced non-stop obstruction from the right wing in Congress would not convince the electorate. With massive unemployment and seemingly little good news, at least for the working classes, it seemed impossible that President Obama could win another term, especially after the gridlock, standoffs and stalled economic agenda that marked the two years since the GOP won control of the House, an election that seemed already to indicate a deep distrust of the president's plans for the nation and a marked swing back towards conservative philosophy.

It is needless to add that all those predictions were false and that the president won a surprisingly robust re-election. As an unabashed liberal, I should be delighted, and certainly I am happy that Obama rather than Romney will take the oath of office in January. But that small consolation aside, this election was decidedly disappointing, at the presidential and congressional level. There were a few bright spots in the state referenda, the most significant being the clear victory for marriage equality in four states, marking the first popular vote in favor. The votes in a couple of states to legalize marijuana also portend a heartening move away from the three decade old sham called the "War on Drugs" - if the federal government reacts with wisdom.

But let me explain why the presidential election was such a letdown. In the run-up to voting day, this contest was portrayed as a clear cut choice between liberal and conservative agenda. Strangely enough, the loss of both the electoral college and the popular vote led to an instant revision on the part of some prominent conservative leaders who pointed out that the president had never really laid out a plan for his second term and hence lacked a mandate to undertake any plan during his term. They are partly right, but like the blind men with the elephant, also mostly wrong. First and foremost the president did have an agenda, and it is largely a continuation of his plans from his first term - regulation of the financial markets, extending healthcare coverage to larger numbers, immigration reform, controlling the deficit through a mixture of spending cuts and revenue increases. But, and this is the real crux of my problem, the president is no liberal and his agenda is really not at all liberal. He, like many Americans, leans slightly left of center, and is more likely to side with the liberal viewpoint than its opposite, but would be far more likely to be pretty much at the center if left to his own devices. President Obama took several years to embrace marriage equality, and has yet to rein in the Department of Justice from their long, wasteful and pointless war against drugs (targeting the smallest players and users while ensuring huge profits for the violent cartels and various terrorist organizations). He has embraced targeted assassinations of suspected enemies of the nation, with the verdict of death pronounced upon hundreds in secrecy and without trial, and many other questionable policies put in place by the Bush administration remain active or simply suspended (not cancelled or repudiated), with little transparency or scrutiny. The regulation of the financial market was a weak effort, and largely toothless, while the talk about increased marginal rates mostly remains just talk - these may be reflections of political necessity but the President has rarely pushed them vigorously in the halls of the legislature. His signature, and now likely permanent, achievement was the extension of health insurance to millions of previously uninsured workers. But the system lacked a strong government role and represents as much of a boon to the insurance industry as it does to the millions who now qualify for healthcare coverage. Tellingly, the basis of the entire plan was initially proposed by conservatives and first advanced as Bob Dole's alternative to President Clinton's plan, and then embraced by Speaker Newt Gingrich and implemented by Governor Romney in Massachusetts, before they developed a severe dislike of it. In short, the President is no liberal.

If that were the only problem, I would be only half as disappointed. Unfortunately, he was never opposed by any true Conservatives. Of course, to be opposed by a conservative, the movement would first have to decide exactly what form of conservatism they embrace and then pick a standard bearer to explain their position. Conservatism is essentially a wish to either keep things the way they are, or to restore them to the way they were at some point in the past. However from the practical viewpoint there are some things in the past that are considered worth keeping or restoring, while others are universally accepted as best left in the past. This concept is largely subjective obviously and manifest itself as two broad forms of conservatism, viz. social and fiscal, with an inherent dissonance betwixt them. Social conservatism is well defined in America, painfully so, with well defined positions that include support for the traditional family, opposition to birth control and abortion, opposition to gender equality, especially for homosexuals, and opposition to scientific theory that contradicts Christian theology. Perhaps I should be more charitable and describe their positions as support for only natural forms of birth control, strong belief in the sanctity of life, belief in the traditional roles of the "normal" sexes, and above all a deep religious faith in the absolute truth of Christian theology. This group was represented by Michelle Bachman, Mike Huckabee (in previous years) and Rick Santorum, and when the dust settled, they were left in the cold, with mere lip service to their ideology.

The fiscal conservatives have a less defined ideology. There are times when I wonder if they know exactly what they stand for themselves, for they sometimes seem to conflate policy for philosophy. Whether they articulate this or not, in the simplest and most positive terms they believe in the supremacy of the individual over the collective, and thence flows most of their policy. Since the individual is prime, government should be minimal, dealing with only issues like defense and international relations. The individual should be entitled to keep his earned wealth and spend it as he sees fit, rather than be forced to contribute it to a collective fund, which ties in nicely with the concept of a minimalist government. The individual rises or falls on his own merit, not on the support of others, an almost Darwinistic approach, but with space for compassion towards those of lesser merit, with the extent of compassionate assistance decided by each individual. In it's purest form, one can certainly understand this philosophy, even if one does not agree with the basic tenets.

From this philosophy flow the various conservative policies, but it is critical to note that a policy such as low taxation is means to an end, not an end in itself and too many conservative in America mistake one for the other. Low taxes as a policy follow from a philosophy that the individual is the best custodian of his wealth, but higher taxation would be a reasonable conservative policy if another policy took precedence, say national security. True conservatives believe in paying the bills as they go, and increased spending if deemed necessary must be paid for by higher taxes. And true conservatives should also accept the importance of prior commitments by the government to its citizens, even when they don't quite agree with that commitment - that commitment, be it social safety nets or medical coverage, must be met even as they're phased out, and by higher taxes if need be.

Governor Romney attempted to straddle the divide between the two strands of conservatism, but it was never clear exactly what aspects of conservatism he endorsed. It was never clear that he even understood the inherent conflict between social conservatism, which emphasizes the primacy of society over individual, and economic conservatism which takes the exactly opposite view. It is not impossible to reconcile the two worlds, but it required a level of intellectual honesty in assessing priorities that the GOP never indulged, neither in it's standard bearers and certainly not amongst its partisans. Both Governor Romney and to an even larger extent Representative Ryan ignored the dichotomy they were attempting to sell and never sought to define the conservatism they would embrace in their presumptive administration; Governor Romney had an inconsistent commitment to conservative principles to put it mildly, but I am not convinced that Paul Ryan, the supposed intellectual cares about the paradox in his position any better than Romney or even actually understands it.

While I do not share conservative principles, even less do I respect the many self-declared conservatives. And yet I, as bleeding heart a liberal a person whose heart ever bled,  lament the failure on the conservative side of the political divide. The liberals did not have a true candidate in this race, but President Obama is indubitably left of center (at least as the center is defined in America) and was accepted by liberals across the country; equally important he was identified as the liberal candidate by his opponents and embraced that label. But the conservatives never came to the fight, not on the intellectual field which is the challenging political battlefield. The GOP hoped to win the White House without winning the battle of ideas, believing that the election was theirs so long as they had a name on the ballot. Despite the ever increasing divergence between the social and economic conservative wings of their coalition, they did not address the issues but tried to pretend that they simply did not exist and nominated a man who sought to avoid every political label. The social conservatives did show up in the primary, and I admit that they are largely consistent in their core beliefs and clear about the kind of society they would like to build, but I am also convinced of the error of their beliefs and history has judged their ideas wanting time and again; in any event even the GOP decided against a full throat-ed endorsement of social conservatism in the presidential election. But the economic conservatives never came out to the lists and critically, have forgotten what their underlying ideology. Normally as a liberal, I would be delighted with a victory by the candidate on the left, but the fact is a healthy polity requires intelligent conservative policy as much as it needs liberals. Unlike some partisans, I respect honest economic conservatism even when I disagree fundamentally with the ideas. Conservatives are as invested in the success of society as liberals and it is foolish to accuse either side of hating themselves or their country; they only differ in the means to the same goal. In an ever changing world, continued success requires a continual examination of policy, and when one ideology gains too great a dominance, it tends to overreach and commit mistakes in policy. Equally dangerous is the stagnation that sets in on the intellectual side and refuses to recognize the changes in the world that make policy from a prior era unsustainable. Both sides of the ideological spectrum are equally susceptible to this failure born of hubris and need each other to balance their demons. If liberalism provides the helping hand and equal opportunity for every member of society, conservatism ensures that individual merit gains the recognition and reward it deserves. Conservatism ensures the generation of wealth while liberalism protects society from the excesses of over-concentrated wealth and indirectly provides the essential conditions that nurture merit and sustain growth in wealth in the first place. The disappearance of true economic conservatives leaves the American polity dangerously imbalanced, and clinging to clueless charlatans masquerading as intellectuals. The policies of Reagan do not work three decades later, but conservatives  have not yet figured the difference between policy and ideas and are floundering with no clear vision. Their only silver lining today is that the economic liberals are almost if not quite as intellectually bankrupt.

Betrayed By Expectations

Normally one might expect a commentary on the political ramifications of a major presidential election in the week or so after said election, but this has been a strange year, culminating in a strange election, one that was overtaken almost instantly by news that befuddled both friend and foe alike. And as an exceptionally talented leader departed following the elections, I was left to ponder whether the failure was not in the man who stood shamed before the world but in the expectations of the public who first deified him and then recoiled in horror at his humanity.

General David Petraeus was a man, and like many men before him, he happily accepted the pleasures that life offered him. Even now, three weeks after the scandal of his extra-marital affair forced him from office, there is little evidence that he had allowed his personal life to affect his efficiency in his professional duties; yet the strange Puritan attitude that passes for wisdom in modern America demands that he leave in disgrace, preferably flagellating his back as he crawls away to hide. Perhaps he needed to go once the affair was publicly known, for the rumors, the publicity and the non-stop chatter of twenty four hour news television would have made it impossible to execute his duties as head of the CIA anymore. Yet, that begs the question: why is his bedroom life of any importance to us?

Of course, as the chief spy, his personal life is of some importance, since he might have fallen prey to the wiles of Mata Hari. Even given that the "other" woman was no security hazard, perhaps the normal pressures of an intimate but secret and (using the term in a very limited sense) illicit relationship might lead to unwitting breaches of security (there is some speculation already on that score, though nothing has been revealed as fact as yet). Such arguments I could understand, but they have been put forth but mildly. One might even argue that Petraeus was never as good as his admirers claimed, and that his background in ground operations and counterinsurgency, no matter how stellar, do not make him an ideal fit as head of a spy agency, and that his work was not to the level expected or required. This again is an discussion worth having, since it can be rationally discussed; and again, it is a discussion swept aside in favor of the weakest, least defensible reason to end this man's tenure. The moral case against him carries the day, as it has in so many other instances, yet this is a unique case that it should have had least weight.

America argues that its leaders, even its masked spy chiefs be paragons of virtue. One can certainly demand that in one's leaders and their appointed servitors, but is that very wise or realistic? Morals, apart from being notoriously subjective, are but one facet of the man (or woman) - more on that later. Good moral character, that bedrock of resumes, is not the only, and not even the most important aspect to seek, especially in the head of a spy agency. Intelligence, innovation, management skills and more, these are all things to look for in a leader, elected or appointed, and we need to ask ourselves if it is more important to have an ascetic but intellectually slow general leading our forces than a smart philanderer. We may wish that the best of all desired virtues are met in one man, but if that highly unlikely man be impossible to find, or unwilling to answer our call, what do we consider more important in available candidates for that position. Kindness to animals in need is a very commendable trait, but would we really care if our CIA director tosses all letters from PETA and the ASPCA directly in the trash? Sharing the burdens of marriage equally may raise a man in the eyes of his peers, but would we disqualify a man who refused to help his wife with the dishes?

We need to really think about what we want in our leaders, and more importantly perhaps in the men who serve our elected leaders. And especially we need to drop the idea that a vaguely defined moral code should be imposed upon a person who has never signed onto that code (I recognize that General Petraeus might still have been subject to the military's code of conduct, which he had accepted when he signed up, but the role as CIA director was not subject to that Code). The whole morality question is especially ridiculous when you consider that killing unarmed men, and even more so women and children, is strongly proscribed in nearly any moral code; yet the head of the CIA will unleash the instruments of death based on incomplete information and with far less proof than we would accept in allowing our police to stop Hispanic car drivers to demand proof of residency. Lying is universally seen as an act of low moral character, yet the CIA director will not only instruct his agents to practice subterfuge and misinformation, but will even lie to the public on occasion. I don't argue that there isn't a case for such action - though I feel it's largely overstated to protect laziness in proving a case for action - or that these actions are inherently immoral. My point is only that we already accept suspension of moral codes in some areas, where to follow the code would be impractical or counterproductive. And this in in the case of principles that are scarcely debatable. Yet in the more morally ambiguous case of an extra-marital affair - was it a brief weakness, did it really hurt anyone, do we know anything about the details of the marriages of the people involved, and is it any of our business anyway - we have invoked that code and our self-righteous outrage at its flaunting to end a man's career, (and subject a trio of young children to publicity about their parents that they certainly didn't request or deserve) and leave a key government agency without its leader.

We can chase the chimera of the perfect candidate and crucify those who fail to live up to the standards of the most voluble, or we can step back and challenge ourselves to identify what we really need in our leaders and then accept the best candidate available, warts and all. And then, perhaps, we will also quit our foolish habit of beatifying our leaders (or at least those from the "correct" side of the political spectrum) and save ourselves the mortification of discovering their feet of clay.

Go Straight to Jail, Do Not Pass Go!

This odd headline caught my eye, "Mom Raises Money to Watch Daughter's Killer Die", and as it happens it was exactly as it sounded. Almost twenty five years ago, a nine year old girl was abducted when she went to the store to get some candy. Her lifeless, and predictably sexually abused body was found the next day, and for the last twenty two years the bereaved family and the convicted, condemned killer have waited for the final curtain on this tragedy. This week the state of Montana will execute the man, and the girl's mother hopes to be in the front row when he departs this world.

Her bitterness at the loss of her child is understandable and desire for closure equally so, perhaps even desirable - having never faced anything remotely so terrible, I cannot judge her attitudes. On the other hand, the general views of the public who chose to express their sentiments on the issue are as removed from the tragedy as my own and form an interesting montage themselves. Perhaps the looming quadrennial election heightens ones partisan opinions and tends to cast all issues in stark black and white terms, but it was quite interesting that most, if not quite all, parties supported a swift execution of the convicted killer, with more than one suggestion that even the trial was a waste of time. The overwhelming view also appeared to hold liberals (interesting really, that Montana was considered a place crawling with bleeding heart liberals!) were to blame for the long delay in closing this chapter.

Perhaps they are right. I have long considered myself a liberal, and even if the killer here had confessed his guilt I would have been loath to condemn him to death. The death penalty is so final that I would hate to send anyone past the final door if even a shadow of doubt remained. But I oppose it even in cases where guilt is not a question, and that opinion has evolved gradually over the years. I can see the death sentence being a credible option under only two conditions: if it brings closure to the families of victims and if it deters future crimes of similar heinous nature. The question of closure is delicate in the extreme, and as one who has never been touched by the shadow of such sorrow, nor practiced in human psychology, I prefer to tread gently around it. But this I will say - there have to be more positive ways to find closure, and we as a race are in a sorry state if watching the death of those who've sinned against us is our only path to healing. I would hope rather that we could find the strength to move past this without additional death - there have been parents who've lost as much and found the strength to do so. And crucially, if this be the only way for that mother to find closure, what would happen to her should she fail to raise the money she needs?

The question of deterrence is easier to discuss. Proponents of harsh punishment usually hold it out as a way to prevent further crime. But in fact, few if any criminals weigh the risks rationally before plunging ahead. Perhaps the odd white collar criminal may consider the downside to failure, and in the rare case of revenge killings, the flipside if usually considered and accepted as a worthwhile trade (incidentally, people acting in revenge gain significant sympathy, especially when the crime avenged is the rape and/or murder of their child, and also represents a case in which we would be largely loath to execute the avenger) but in crimes involving mental disorders - sadistic murder, and rape, especially of children - the criminal usually does not contemplate the dangers of being caught at all. And even should that calculus flit across his mind, it is not likely to deter him; the demons within are too powerful and will not be denied. The second argument against the death penalty is simpler yet - many proponents suggest that incarceration is somehow a fairly pleasant alternative, that life in jail is not much worse than life without. That of course is also the secret of their opposition, in this case, to liberals, who they hold responsible for this life of leisure. I would argue that just as no wild bird would choose to live in a cage, no matter the assurance of plentiful food, neither would any man actually find that to be jailed for life is equal to freedom outside the prison walls. I have swung around to the view, too, that the prolonged the time on "death row" between conviction and final appeal, is if anything, almost as inhumane as the execution itself.

If nether closure for the victims, nor deterrence to potential criminals, justifies the death penalty, it follows that the time has come to usher that punishment the way of the rack and cat-o'-nine-tails (coincidentally, some gentlemen of strong opinion have favored such barbaric forms of execution as preferable to lethal injection). It would also behoove us to rethink the whole logic of our prison system - are we incarcerating people as deterrent, as punishment or as a means to rehabilitation. The answer is critical, since the efficacy of the system as a means of punishment or rehabilitation can be scientifically measured (as can the deterrent effect to a lesser degree) and the system adjusted accordingly. Yet as a society, we seem blissfully uninterested in exactly what we hope to achieve from our large, and ever growing, prison system. The introduction of for-profit facilities further complicates the picture, introducing a sector that clearly has none of the above-listed aims, though it serves as a part of the same system.

The question of rehabilitation is especially important when discussing the future of sexual predators - rapists, and even more especially pedophiles are driven by urges that cannot be easily corrected. While vocational training and education may help petty criminals start a new and constructive life, and separation from drugs and gang life may provide the breathing space for others to break free from the chains that dragged them to prison in first place, even intensive psychological treatment succeeds  only to a limited extent, and only to the degree that the patient is willing to undergo. Releasing a serial rapist or killer from jail after a few years does nothing to prevent a repeat performance (I recall a pedophile who told his parole board that once released he would surely find and rape another child, and more till he was caught again), and that raises the unhappy specter of a fourth dark reason for a prison system: do we permanently incarcerate these criminals to protect ourselves from them? And can the death penalty be justified under those circumstances, when we have no other way of definitively stopping a killer from finding new victims?

There are no easy answers, but it's a discussion that must be addressed desperately, not with cliches or sound bites or glib platitudes but with sober rational argument, be it conservative or progressive. With over two and a quarter million people in jail, and nearly five million on parole or still in the system, with high recidivist rates, and with a large segment of sexual predators, this is not a problem that can be swept out of sight any longer.

Two To Tango

Some optimists have hailed Congressman Paul Ryan at the lower half of the challenger's presidential ticket as a harbinger of a serious policy-oriented campaign, and on the face of it the sitting president's campaign ad calling this a clear choice between stark and well defined alternatives would seem to indicate the same. But we live in a world of non-stop media - I would fain call it a news world anymore since most of the time is given to statement of opinions rather than the simple reporting news. Much as we may claim that we wold like to see a serious debate about the issues confronting us and the rival plans for tackling them, we have actually give lie to our professed wishes with the attention we lavish upon every meaningless attack ad and soundbite.

A serious debate would require recognition of nuance, of the possibility that opposing views may have merit equal to our own, or should at least be judged with that possibility. But when a leading politician of the right declares that his idea of compromise is when the other party accepts every one of his demands and gets nothing in return, the chances of civil discourse are greatly reduced. When the leader of the GOP declares that his main aim is to ensure the defeat of the president simply because he represents a different party, the chances for discussion are reduced. Certainly, Congressman Ryan has the benefit of a reputation for seriousness and a body of policy plans that set him apart from other recent candidates for that office, as well as some who sought the upper line on the ticket. But in a world where policies must be defined in a sentence and where the listeners lose attention halfway even then, it's unlikely that this debate will rise to any heights beyond what we heard two years ago when far more time was spent talking about non-existent death panels than discussing the actual provisions of the healthcare law.

There is a good chance that there are aspects of the GOP plan that I would support, and to his credit President Obama has even embraced some of those ideas. I believe the time to raise the retirement age has arrived quite some decades ago - not only has life expectancy increased greatly, but there is no doubt that most people in their mid-sixties are far fitter and more active than their parents were at the same stage of life, and it's ridiculous to cling to that age as though it were somehow sacrosanct. A modest change of just a couple of months or so every year in the retirement age would greatly improve the financial health of our safety net without changing the quality of life for the vast majority of us; for those whose life may leave them less able to work past sixty-five, exceptions are always possible where warranted. But the key to this, as with all other policy changes out there, is for an honest effort by both sides. And that effort is lacking, as evidence when one side opposes their own ideas the moment they are adopted by the other - the individual mandate at the heart of the president's health care reform was actually dreamed up by conservatives eager to provide an alternative to a publicly funded health care system, yet every major GOP member pretended to forget that and opposed health care reform en bloc. Their presumptive candidate for president actually went so far as to forget that his own initiative as a state governor was based on the same tenets - such intellectual dishonesty kills any desire to engage in meaningful debate on matters of substance.

All politicians twist the truth, but the larger number of conservatives today have reached a new level of aversion for reality and honesty. They opposed the economic stimulus proposed by the president in 2009. Now there is a place for disagreement over Keynesian theory for reviving depressed economies, but conservatives reflexively opposed a stimulus package that actually included a clear third in tax cuts - the new mantra for conservatives in the thrall of a schoolboy who seemingly hasn't grown up - and had  significantly less public spending than liberal economists desired, as a
sop to conservatives. This was not a disagreement over policy - since the stimulus package was actually crafted as a compromise - but a craven refusal to accept the right of any other party to govern, no matter the clear electoral mandate. The president, when faced with a mid-term political reversal pledged to listen to what the public had said with their votes; even if that be simply words, as his critics my scornfully say, his opponents have never even whispered the same, much less acted with humility. And can any conversation on national policy be possible without the humility to recognize that others' ideas may have merit?

Optimists may wish, and may build their castles in the air, but if the GOP is in earnest about having a serious policy debate, it's not enough to choose a vice-presidential candidate with a lengthy resume as a wonk, it's about actually engaging in the debate. And that means repudiating many policies that smack of rank partisanship. Would the Romney-Ryan ticket start by clarifying their exact opposition to the Affordable Care Act, and why it needs to be immediately repealed when it's so similar to Romney's own effort in Massachusetts? But really, if they really want this to be about substance over fluff, they could make one easy move that would show their desire to win on the strength of their ideas rather than by any dirty trick - simply call upon their surrogates in the State houses to stop trying to disenfranchise whole swaths of the populace. If they made a simple statement that they believed in the right of every person to vote, and that they were confident of winning because they had a better plan for the country, it may go far in clearing the air and setting the stage for a meaningful discussion on different visions on moving forward. But if they refuse to take that chance, we will have nothing but endless attacks on both sides, and the only voice of sanity left will be a comedian - dare I hope for Stewart/Colbert 2012?

Time for a Web-Redemption

It appears to me that a certain sometimes hilariously funny and sometimes disgusting and unfunny comedian crossed a fairly visible line when he "joked" about gang rape for a woman who heckled him. Now I don't know about the material that prompted the woman in the audience to heckle him though it reportedly also involved facetious remarks about rape that irked that woman, and consequently I have no opinion regarding the appropriateness of that material; but based on the transcript of his response to the woman, I have to say he failed himself, his audience and his fans in every possible way.

When he responded to his heckler with the words "Wouldn't it be funny if that woman were gang raped? Like right now?" he showed a striking lack of decency, and failed on so many levels. Starting with the trivial, he wasn't even funny in his response. Any joke that starts "wouldn't it be funny...?" reveals that the narrator knows there is nothing hilarious to follow, it's a desperate plea to the audience to pretend that the material is funny even when it's not. Let's set aside the more serious issue for just a moment and replace "gang rape" with any other term: "wouldn't it be funny if a meteor fell on that heckler? wouldn't it be funny if the earth opened up and swallowed up that heckler? wouldn't it be funny if that heckler gets cancer and suffers a slow painful death?" - those aren't even remotely funny, because they evoke no humorous image, excite no chord of humorous sympathy. All they do is wish for something horrible to happen to the person who heckled him. He would have been infinitely more funny if he went medieval and cursed the heckler with words like , "I curse you and hope that something mildly inconvenient may happen to you such as an egg falling on your head as you walk under a tree".

But his failings as a comedian are trivial compared to his failings as a member of the human family. Rape is, and has always been about power. It is not about sex or even lust, and never about ordinary physical pleasure but about domination, about one party - usually but not always a man, or group of men - asserting control over another, typically a woman, but also on occasion other men. It is why victorious armies raped the women in conquered cities, a brutal demonstration of their power and domination. It's why homosexual rape is common in prisons, even amongst heterosexuals, far more than in any other setting; lack of heterosexual partners does not drive people into homosexual acts, but the structure of prison society lends itself to that same means of demonstrating power. The threat, and danger of rape is a real and present fear to many women, and that fear is used directly or indirectly to constrain their behavior and deny them the same freedoms as men, as evidenced most recently in the actions of Egyptian police towards women protesters. This is something that this comedian could hardly be unaware of, which makes his decision to joke about rape misplaced at best. When confronted with disapproval, he seems to have lashed out in a cowardly manner, prompted perhaps in part by the knowledge that he was in the wrong but unwilling to acknowledge it or apologize.

Instead he "joked" about the heckler being gang-raped, by his fans in the audience around her. One presumes that he did not mean anyone to act on it, and fortunately nothing untoward ensued, but it was a threat, a naked show of power, a verbalization of the inherent reasons behind physical rape. The nearest analogy I can imagine is for a person with dark skin tone - African or South Asian perhaps -  to be in a meeting of predominantly white people, some of them possibly white supremacists and hear the speaker invite the crowd to lynch the dark guy. I cannot imagine that any woman would feel safe when threatened with gang rape while standing in a crowd of strangers, a majority of them men. For comedian to use his podium to issue such a threat is despicable. It was as naked a threat to his heckler as possible: "shut up and get out of here, or see what happens".

There have been two main arguments in defense of this comedian, by his fans. Firstly, that he was joking, and did not intend anything to happen to the woman. Actually, since there was nothing remotely humorous about his statement, he wasn't; he was simply, and clearly, threatening the woman. Even if it was an empty threat that was never intended to be carried through, it was still a threat - and as Henry IV would attest, words like those have consequences; Henry paid for the unintended consequences of his words, Tosh should at least face up to his mistake and apologize for it. Secondly, some have argued, astoundingly that the woman "asked for it" by heckling him. As I said, I did not see the show, I don't know exactly how it played out - and I can understand that heckling can really irk a stand-up comedian, as Michael Edwards would testify - but the attitude that someone's behavior can justify rape, or the threat thereof is quite simply wrong. Charitably, fans may be suggesting that a heckler is inviting the comedian to retort and react and has no right to be aggrieved if the comedian then jokes about him or her. I would gran that logic if he had made a joke about her, said anything remotely funny about her, even humiliating, depending on whether she was actually heckling him or not. But he didn't - instead he chose to threaten her. Would it be acceptable if he had pulled out a gun and threatened to blow her head off for heckling him? Even that may have been funnier, because it would seem so ridiculously unlikely to actually happen - he actually issued a very thinly veiled and very plausible threat, which is why there was nothing funny about the situation.

Finally, there are questions about the appropriateness of any jokes regarding rape. I did see a brief video clip of Tosh making a "rape joke", about replacing his sister's pepper spray with Silly String, and her getting raped the next night as a consequence. Well, that's not actually a rape joke (I'd say it's not even a funny joke) since one could replace "rape" with "mugged" or car-jacked or any number of crimes, without affecting the premise one bit. But more importantly, rape is about power and domination, and any joke that shifts the balance of power away from the rapist and back to the victim is acceptable, in my opinion. Rapists seek to dominate their victims, and ridiculing the rapists actually erodes their power over their victims and consequently their to hurt; it would empower the victims and help them in reclaiming their lives, which the rapist sought to destroy. It is, in fact analogous to jokes about authoritarian regimes - laughter liberates and shatters the shackles of control, be it the rule of despots or the mental and psychological power exerted by rapists. And comedians have always been in the vanguard of the struggle against the established powers, on the side of the oppressed and weak and against tyranny of the rich and powerful, both religious and secular. The comedian who threatened his fan so vilely should not only apologize to her, he should decide on which side of the line he stands - with the silent masses or their overlords.