CSotD: Recalibrating
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Dana Summers may not want to take this line of thought where I do, but he's on the right track.
The shooting-up of LAX has inspired some cartoons like this one by Darrin Bell, which is a general reflection on shootings in general …
And this more (heh) targeted one by Steve Benson.
I like all three, but for different reasons and different purposes.
That is, Benson reflects my frustration with the idiotic John Wayne approach to public safety and to the harm done to our national dialogue since the crazies hijacked the NRA a generation ago. A well-funded group dedicated to responsible gun ownership would be a valuable part of society. A well-funded group dedicated to encouraging screwball extremism and paranoia, not so valuable.
But in a more thoughtful democracy, the gun nuts would be as impotent as the KKK — capable of the occasional outrage, including ones resulting in innocent death, but marginalized and without mainstream power or support.
And Bell's cartoon is a reminder that we do not live in that more thoughtful democracy. While I didn't need to be reminded, it's important that we continue to say that. We should be better than this. We should not accept the inevitability of these pointless, tragic events. It is not the price of freedom.
I'm not a huge fan of Tom Friedman, but his most recent column at NYTimes points out how our inability to get our act together is undermining our reputation overseas, and not simply in a philosophical way. It's going to start impacting our economy as well as our perhaps more theoretical standing among nations.
That is, between Bush's doctrine of pre-emptive invasions and nation-building, and now the revelations of our spying (which aren't revelations but weren't on the table for discussion before), we're seen as the playground bullies. In the days of the Cold War, our outrages were diminished by the balancing outrages of the Russians and Chinese, but today we are really fogging any distinction between being the sole remaining superpower and being the sole remaining foreign policy psychopath.
But Friedman addresses our internal pathology in his column and, while you can read the whole thing here, I'll spare you ticking the counter on your free visits to the Times with this relevant paragraph:
Worse, whenever you’d visit China or Singapore, it was always the people there who used to be on the defensive when discussing democracy. Now, as an American, you’re the one who wants to steer away from that subject. After all, how much should we be bragging about a system where it takes $20 million to be elected to the Senate; or where a majority of our members of Congress choose their voters through gerrymandering rather than voters choosing them; or where voting rights laws are being weakened; or where lawmakers spend most of their free time raising money, not studying issues; or where our Congress has become a forum for legalized bribery; or where we just had a minority of a minority threaten to undermine America’s credit rating if we didn’t overturn an enacted law on health care; or where we can’t pass even the most common sense gun law banning assault weapons after the mass murder of schoolchildren?
Exactimundo, mon frere.
Until the end of the graf, at least, because "banning assault weapons" is a pat, nearly pointless response. I'd go along with banning huge clips, certainly. I'd also go along with appointing people to the Supreme Court who believe that the term "well-regulated militia" somehow refers to, oh, I dunno, maybe a "well-regulated militia," such that states would retain the power to regulate their gunowners.
But that's not the same debate, which brings us back to Dana Summers. The courts do allow states to take guns away from felons and from the insane, but that's where we get into some of the rest of Friedman's criticism.
We need better mental health services in this country.
We need better health services overall, which is at the heart of all the discussion over the Affordable Care Act, which, in turn, fits in with Friedman's commentary about our gerrymandered, lobbyist-owned, PAC-terrorized Congress.
Their fear of offending the gun lobby is only one part of our toleration for mass murder as "the price of freedom."
The real poison in our system, which taints everything including our inability to stop mass murder, is their fear of saying to constituents, "Look, we're a nation and, as a nation, we need to take care of each other. And it costs money to do that."
The answer isn't more guns, but the answer also isn't no guns. That kind of simple-minded thinking isn't going to move us forward.
The answer is sensible regulation — and the lunatic fringe theory that regulation is futile because bad guys won't comply is just as valid a reason to legalize murder, bank robbery and sexual assault on children.
We don't need laws against things people won't do anyway. We need laws against things they want to do but that society has agreed they shouldn't. This should not be a difficult concept to grasp.
But the primary rule, in the Chrisianity-based nation people keep saying we are, is "love thy neighbor," which means that we've got to treat our sick, and, if you won't do it because you don't care if they die, you should do it because leaving the mentally ill untreated and undiagnosed puts us at risk of more mass murders of innocent people.
The right-wing has actually agreed with this: That, rather than outlaw guns, we should take steps to keep them out of the hands of the mentally ill.
Which then becomes what they claim to despise: An unfunded mandate.
So fund it.
I mean, Jesus Christ Almighty, it's not that complicated. RTFM. If you don't have a copy, here are several.
(Mike Luckovich, on a related reason to RTFM)
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