July 25, 2012

The entire Amendment follows the word "militia." Of which we have none.

The pro-gun take on the Second Amendment is self-contradictory. It claims to rest on strict construction and "plain meaning," and then promptly ignores the fact that the entire Amendment deals with militias. Which were important when America didn't have a standing Army, and now are irrelevant.

So much for strict construction and plain meaning. We'll take out the first half, and focus on "bear." We'll ignore the fact that self-defense weapons were something our forebears kept in their homes and barns. We'll pretend the intention was for people to bring guns to courthouses and parks and schoolyards. We'll pretend that nothing is different about modern weaponry and modern living that the Founding Fathers could not have conceived, that "armed society is polite society."

And it's all delivered with a pseudo-rationalist tone and airy declarations that people simply don't understand how gun violence has nothing at all to do with guns. People would simply commit drive-by knifings and schoolyard chainsawings and mass baseball battings, you see.

There's no reasonable question about the fact the Second Amendment was intended to protect American's ability to be prepared to fight wars and keep the peace, at a time when local militias were the only means to do that. We don't live in that world anymore. Our militias have become police departments and the military. That's where our citizens "bear arms."

There was never any intention in the Second Amendment for Americans to walk around ready to shoot each other in the supermarket should they feel threatened. There was no intention that rightwingers be prepared to fight it out with the United States government if it got out of line.

The American gun lobby has carefully constructed a dense mythology around the Constitution and the role of firearms and firearm violence. It was never anyone's intention that everyday citizens walk around on the lookout for crime, or dispatch criminals to protect property. To go on armed "neighborhood watch." It has a silly catchphrase or garbled statistic or a disingenuous bit of illogic for every situation. Now we're told that the fact the ATF can't keep American guns out of Mexico because 99% of the process is protected by our own laws is actually a secret plot by President Obama to make people THINK we need better gun laws.

The legal reality is that our shiny new ultra-conservative Supreme Court has since found an individual right to bear arms, so there we are. The word "militia" has been erased. Thank you, NRA. But it's not where we started.

And the argument that we "can't" change gun laws because it's politically problematic is another gun lobby red herring. We can't until we do. We all understand why gun proponents want to wait until the latest in the endless line of American mass shootings fades away to talk about it. But the intervals are getting shorter, and the blood is getting deeper, and it's getting harder to pretend that keeping our country brimming with easily bought and sold firearms of every description has nothing to do with it.

July 2, 2012

It's a fascinating lie to protect shady American gun sellers.

So, the reality, as the article points out, is that it is virtually impossible to stop gun traffic into Mexico, because most of what constitutes gun trafficking is actually legal, thanks to the overwhelming success of pro-gun lobbyists. ATF agents, already hampered and largely defanged by the relentless "jackbooted thugs" campaign carried on by the NRA, went as far as New York to try to get the obvious trafficking they were witnessing prosecuted. But they couldn't. It's not illegal for an 18-yr-old to, say buy $20,000 in weaponry, repeatedly, on the theory it might be for "personal use," and then sell them all the next day having "changed his mind."

So, the reality is that gun laws are so weak that Mexico is flooded with American guns in a process that essentially isn't illegal, because gun rights are so broad here. That's what's actually happening. ATF can't arrest anyone because you basically would have to witness someone saying, "Here, let me illegally traffic this firearm to you, hahahahahahaha!"

The conspiracy theory cooked up to deal with this is a gob-smacking piece of cognitively dissonant genius. It's just so bald-faced nuts that it makes perfect sense, if you just invert reason entirely. You just have to believe that law enforcement agents never wanted to do their jobs, bust people and stop weapons trafficking -- how naive! Nooo, they wanted to FAIL, so gun trafficking would get bad, so we'd all THINK we needed better enforcements and / or legislation. Because law enforcement agents think like that, and readily agree to engage in complex conspiracies involving deliberately letting their comrades be murdered, just to please President Obama and his secretly anti-gun stance that he has never revealed in speech or policy. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHHA!

Wow. This is exactly the same flavor of proving-something-via-its-utter-nonexistence that NRA President / gibbering nutwad Wayne Lapierre introduced a while back, where Obama has been soft on gun control, BECAUSE HE WANTS TO BE HARD ON GUN CONTROL!!

It's perfect logic, if you're insane. And the best part is yet to come. You see, as soon as it sort of sinks in that the ATF was actually (gasp) trying to do its job, and not pretending to not be able to do its job in order to ... TAKE OUR GUNS! someone will be tempted to suggest that maybe we need some kind of database to track gun sales, instead of those boxes of forms the article talks about agents having to painstakingly review by hand. Or, maybe there could be some kind of limit on large sales to individuals. Or something. Anything. But they won't be able to, because as soon as anyone tries, a trillion screaming NRA acolytes will shout ...

AHA! WE KNEW IT! Look at the gun grabbers, using the ATF's "fake" failure to stop guns from going to Mexico to falsely try to justify laws to actually stop guns from going to Mexico! !!! !!! !!!

So at last we scrape down through all the crazy slogans and pseudo-logic, and unending hysteria about jack-booted G-men coming to take Grandma's shotgun and we see what's really most important to the mega-powerful gun lobby in America.

Gun-running to Mexico. All of this nonsense, from Lapierre to Issa, and this galactically impossible non-scandal, is aimed at protecting gun shops that sell a hell of a lot of weaponry to mules headed to Mexico. It has nothing to do with the Second Amendment. Nothing to do with self-defense, or hunting or target shooting, or a Swiss-like ideal of every citizen being prepared to defend the homeland.

Gunrunner profits. That's what matters here. That's what all the screaming and sweating and false visions of gun-stripping apocalypsi are about. They knew people were wondering why there is a steady river of arms flowing from Arizona directly to Mexician drug lords, and got worried someone might eventually want to do something about it. So we all got Congressman Car Thief Issa's epic hearings, the first attempt to hold a USAG in contempt of Congress, and the "Fast and Furious scandal."

But no talk so far of doing a single thing to stem the flow of illegal American guns. Because once again, when it comes to firearms in America, crazy works just fine.

July 2, 2012

Because they know religion is just culture, babbling to itself?

Very few people, if not indoctrinated at a young age, can hold on to stories written by a bronze-age goat-herding culture, explaining the universe and morality in terms of burning bushes and god-impregnated virgins.

If the political movements calling themselves conservatism or Christian fundamentalism in America today thought for a moment that an omniscient being was watching them and judging them on the basis of the empathy supposedly taught by Jesus, they'd burst into flame out of pure shame. These groups worship a god as stupid as they are, because all the notion of god is to them is an imaginary inflated version of their own deluded egos and self-induced ignorance.

But I don't know that it's ever been any different. Monotheism, and in particular Christianity, despite its morally reasonable sounding roots in the strangely Eastern philosophy of its central figure, has always been first and foremost a power structure. First thing they did was adopt and rename everything anyone had ever liked about a spiritual or mystical view of nature. Then they threw out women, and sex, and replaced them with an image of their ideal leader -- a single male Authority, angry, stupid, and vengeful. And set up a comprehensive system of force to maintain it.

I respect belief and a spiritual approach for those who choose to embrace it. But this cow is not sacred. It was a lie when it was first told, and it's a lie today. I think there's only so far you go with a lie, even with the best intentions.

But I don't think this repellant assault on intelligence, knowledge, equality, and peace, has anything to do with belief. It's a propaganda framework used dishonestly by people who at their core don't believe for a moment in any kind of moral order or a just universe.

By their fruits we shall know them.

June 29, 2012

The "broccoli argument?" That's a really poor analogy.

- Everyone doesn't need broccoli (or guns) in order to live, in every single case.

- We don't feel compelled to give people who don't have broccoli (or guns) super expensive Emergency Room broccoli (or guns) to prevent them from dying in the streets

- People's lives are not being destroyed because they need broccoli (or guns) in order to live, or save the lives of their children, parents, and spouses, where even small amounts of broccoli (or guns) cost more than everything they have.

- The broccoli (and gun) industry isn't relying on the life-or-death nature of the need for their products to force people into complicated, opaque schemes whereby they pay for broccoli (or guns) but often don't actually get the broccoli (or guns) when and how they need them, because the profit motive compels a constant increase in profits, which in turn requires constantly lowering the level or quantity of "broccoli." Or "guns." While increasing the price 10 or 20 or 30% per year.

- People aren't being denied life-giving broccoli / guns because they forgot to mention they had asthma for two weeks in the eighth grade. People aren't denied live-giving broccoli or guns because they already needed broccoli or guns at some point before they lost their previous job. Bureacrats aren't being paid huge salaries to devise new ways to cheat dying people out of the guns and broccoli they need to live.

- People aren't forced to keep jobs they may hate, or forgo other opportunities, in order to ensure that they don't lose the ability to obtain broccoli or guns.

- The current, modest reform effort we are all discussing would require people who irrationally, dishonestly, do not believe they will ever need "broccoli or guns" to, IF they are not impoverished, to pay a fee of some $600. There is no coercion, nor threat of imprisonment. A whopping 2% of the population is expected to fall into this category.

Really, this is ridiculous. We live in a civilization, the basis of which is shared use of resources and cooperation for the common good. That's what civilization is. That's how it works. All the other countries not currently impoverished or in utter chaos know this. As Bill Maher so eloquently put it recently, "All the other 'big-boy' nations on Earth have universal health care (in which people are -- gasp -- technically 'forced' to participate).

Regarding health care, which is nothing like broccoli, or guns, our options are limited.

1) We can figure out the most effective way for everyone to have it, which will be expensive, and which will by its nature require both "rationing" of resources on some level, and the subsidization by the younger and healthier of the older and sicker. Kind of like the older, sicker people subsidized all the younger, healthier people by producing and raising them. We already have rationing and subsidies just like this in the "free market" system, which does the same thing, just with pools much smaller than the entire population.

2) We can rely on the bizarre, accidental employer-subsidized system that everyone hates, or something similar, in which some people have some healthcare options, some of the time, and the rest are dealt with through the spectacularly inefficient and expensive method of trying to treat them all in the emergency room, or

3) We can let anyone who hasn't stumbled into the right job at the right time, or joined the military, or gone to prison, die the streets. Which would in fact "free" people from cooperating in the society we all depend on and benefit from, but the reality of which might be less desirable than charging people a small fee for failing to support the system we know they will eventually have to rely upon anyway.

Broccoli and guns my ass.

June 26, 2012

This is what you reap when you adopt Republican policy propositions

The individual mandate IS the Republican healthcare reform proposal -- from a few years ago. Obama's people apparently thought Republicans would be boxed in when confronted with their own approach, completely underestimating their willingness to perform (and the public's willingness to accept) a complete reversal with zero explanation. It was their idea, but now it's the Worst Thing Ever, plus ... COMMUNISM!

Could the mandate work? Sure, and we'd be far better off with the whole package than without it, but the individual mandate is a patented Republican gift to private insurance, which is the core of the entire healthcare problem. Profit motive and life-and-death human services just don't work. We can regulate them as much as we want, but at the end of the day, they'll still be trying to give the least care for the most money.

It's a classic triangulation fail. Instead of rope-a-doping Republican rhetoric while still currying favor with rich corporations as the administration planned, now we might lose absolutely necessary and beneficial healthcare reform because we freed Republicans to decry their own tacky plan to guarantee insurance company profit in perpetuity.

Maybe at some point here, we'll learn to stop picking up Republican turds and trying to convince ourselves they taste good.

June 19, 2012

I don't think the dehumanization argument is that mysterious.

Full disclosure: Straight, have seen enough porn to know what it is, and that it doesn't appeal to me.

I scan this issue when it pops up from time to time, and it seems like people are continually talking past each other.

Most of the objection (to the objections to porn) seems to come from a free speech / you can't ban that point of view. That's deliberately obtuse. It's not a puritanical argument suggesting sex is inherently bad or demeaning. It's critical argument suggesting that bad, demeaning porn is bad and demeaning.

It's a cultural issue, and it's largely to do with male / female power dynamics. Respectfully, I think it's a little glib for a gay man to say he doesn't see what they're talking about vis a vis gay porn. You wouldn't. That's not the issue. Men are equals in our society in a way that men and women are not. Whether they prefer men or women, men outside of prison don't worry about being perceived as a piece of sexual toilet paper to be used and discarded. But what I think they're talking about is that a huge proportion of (hetero) porn not only comes from exactly that place, but celebrates the fact. No humanity. No emotion. Porn itself makes an argument that sex is an empty, meaningless itch to be scratched, violently and mindlessly.

I say what "they" are talking about, because I don't propose to have the answer to all of this either -- it's complicated. Certainly puritanical bans on sexual content of any kind won't fly in any kind of open society.

But that doesn't mean there's not a huge point to be made about the crass, juvenile, soulless depictions of sex, and women in particular, that make up the bulk of "porn." Is that somehow not true? Or, are people not supposed to point it out, because even shitty, animalistic depictions of sex must get a pass from everyone, lest we become too repressive?

Bullshit. There's a lot of bad, ugly porn in the world, a lot of it insulting and demeaning to women in particular, and people who care about free speech and open discussions of sexuality ought to be helping point that out, not standing on some detached notion that we have to tread lightly so as not to cramp anyone's style.

We can make qualitative distinctions about things -- that's what progressives are supposed to be good at. It's not "porn: yes or no?" It's about bad art informed by bad ideas. Art tells stories, and if those stories rely on debasing stereotypes or a celebration of human cruelty or depredation, we ought to talk about that.

May 14, 2012

Religious belief is as germane to politics as religious groups cause it to be.

JFK took great pains to talk about the fact that his religious beliefs wouldn't be the basis of his decisions as President. This was of course because Catholicism is not the preferred American brand of Christianity, and his opponents raised the specter of him taking orders from the Vatican.

But our politicians seldom make that distinction anymore. A lot of them argue the opposite -- from Huckabee saying that the Bible takes precedence over the Constitution, to Santorum promising to drag us back to the good ole 1500's. I think Obama has expressed secularist restraint, but carefully, because of the huge Evangelical drumbeat we have now insisting that we are a "Christian nation."

What is Romney's take on this? Doesn't he hold some kind of rank in the Mormon Church? Is it not more likely than not that LDS leaders have his ear? And the Mormons don't stay out of politics either. They have proudly been a huge influence in stifling gay rights. How would be unreasonable to question the political influence of a religious organization with explicit, extreme views that is ALSO heavily active in trying to influence American law?

It is and always should be fair to question whether a candidate's ties to a politically active organization impact his or her positions. If religious groups want to be left out of the political limelight, they need to actually ... stay out of the political limelight. Can't have it both ways.

Moreover, as religious groups in American politics become more openly fundamentalist, and continue to demand an influence on policy, it's fair to question those beliefs themselves. LDS, like other fundamentalist groups, doesn't tolerate metaphorical or theoretical views of religious doctrine. It insists that bizarre, supernatural occurrences and rituals are literally true, and literally required by "God," to the point where defying the church can lead to complete ostracizing from all other church members, including family.

We always give these beliefs a pass, somehow, because of a cultural preference for the dominant religions. But we wouldn't consider for a moment a political candidate from some non-preferred sect who believed in some OTHER magic plates or some other virgin birth or some other sacred undergarments. We'd question their sanity and their judgment and laugh them off the national stage.

So which is it? Do we want candidates who put religious thinking first, including magical beliefs and ancient thoughts on what constitutes moral behavior, or are we going to insist that whomever we appoint to lead will please remember that we are a nation of secular laws, not supernatural beliefs?

Candidates for office have a choice. They can declare that they put secular law first, period, in which case their spiritual beliefs are irrelevant. Or they can claim their beliefs or their church are part of their qualifications, or try to fudge the issue (as Romney seems to be attempting) in which case those beliefs and those churches ought to be examined under the same microscope as the rest of their personality.

May 11, 2012

There is a saying about character being revealed in how we treat

those from whom we have the least to gain and the least to fear.

We know what Romney will say or do when political victory is the goal -- anything. From pro-choice to "fertilized eggs are people," if you've got something he wants, he'll follow you anywhere, smiling and ingratiating. But when he can't be threatened or punished, he inflicts pain on those in no position to fight back. Thinks it's his right. Finds it amusing.

There's something, too, about our political philosophies. The Ryans and Romneys of the world argue we should gauge the quality of our country by how well we treat the rich and powerful, not by how we treat the disenfranchised, poor, and powerless. Better that 200 millionaires don't pay a penny more in taxes than a million children have an education. If dogs don't to be strapped to roofs with their stomachs imploding, they should go to Harvard Business school, make some contacts.

There's something insidious and cold in this man's gaze. He's worse than the feckless boob he appears.

April 10, 2012

I'll bite. Pronouncements of religious faith in American politics are primarily disingenuous.

Obama is far from the worst example, but he famously invited a full-blown RW Christian extremist to speak. His other comments on his faith, while doubtless true in a general sense, absolutely require a large grain of salt in the context of a fanatically extremist conservative American movement, gathered under the banner of Christianity, that welcomed him with immediate accusations of being a Muslim, and the unspoken suggestion that no Muslim would ever be fit to be President. He, and every other political leader in the country, is constantly under pressure to prove he is sufficiently Christian, goes to church enough, puts the right picture on his Christmas card, doesn't commit the sin of referring to the Christmas season or the (pagan) tree decoration with the overly inclusive term "holidays," etc., etc. etc.

Respectfully, I hope this OP is not an attempt to conflate criticism of religion, which more relevant than ever now, with the tidal wave of religiously justified attacks on women and gay people, with an attack on Obama, and thus to bring it under the umbrella of things not permitted on DU. That would be both sad and incredibly silly.

Back to the point though, it's well past time for more full-throated critique of the role of, in particular, the Christian religion in American culture, and politics. We have developed this very strange, inherently contradictory game, in which anyone who would hold office is put under tremendous pressure to claim devotion to philosophical traditions which, if taken literally -- would be insane.

Why is that okay?

If we were to remove the protective cloak of tradition, and consider the qualifications for national political office -- or even, say, dogcatcher -- of someone who believed the entire world was created by, is in the control of, and has every iota of ethical behavior defined by, some OTHER otherworldly being besides Yahweh / Allah, the conversation would be brief, defined by uncomfortable laughter, and likely followed with a psychological exam.

What we insist on is lip service. No one wants a leader who really believes in virgin births or mystical healing, or prancing devils waiting in the afterlife to torture unbelievers with fire.

No sane person would vote for anyone who genuinely believes our lives should be dictated by 2,000 year-old stories of magical beings who enjoy sacrificial bulls, murder thousands of children when angry, order that women should be subservient to men, or that moral conduct includes what foods a person eats, what clothes they wear, or how or with which other consenting adults they choose to have sex. NO ONE.

It's the Lie Agreed Upon. I don't mean religion itself. There are sincere believers who lead sincere lives and sincerely try to do good, all centered around their faith. I don't agree with critics who would deny that. Normal Christianity, practiced the way normal, secularly minded people practice it, does not require or even deserve ridicule.

None of this is to say incivility toward DUers or any other typical people of faith -- the ones that don't define their beliefs as simply a justification to humiliate or destroy anyone or anything they find culturally distasteful -- is okay. There is plenty of room for any number of beliefs.

But those beliefs are not immune to criticism, including the criticism that they are fully nonsensical.

Not when they are used as a cudgel, over and over and over again, to attack and destroy people and support every heinous political agenda from homophobia to forced vaginal ultrasounds. For Christ's sake.

So long as the public discussion of Christianity in American politics and culture is dominated by the Santorums and Popes of the world, yes, vitriol, satire, and derision are going to be part of the conversation. It's necessary, decent, and more than fully deserved. If it offends normal churchgoers who aren't screaming at the top their lungs about zygotes being people, or gays and Muslims NOT being people, then they just aren't paying enough attention.

I think everyone understands that President Obama is one of many public figures who seem unable to disentangle themselves from this hypocrisy. It is enough, for now, if he will simply oppose as any decent person would, the indecent things continually proposed in the name of Christianity in this country.

It can, however, be done. JFK seemed to have had a pretty good handle on the way religion and politics should work in a sane, secular society. I question whether Obama or any national political figure say this now, given that "separation of church and state" has become another in the growing list flat-out denials of reality embraced by American "Christian Conservatives:"

"I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference; and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him."

March 13, 2012

Being a good parent fits into purpose. I've yet to see anything pointless or purposeless in Nature.

Agree re: "destiny" and so forth. These are grandiose, human-centric ego dreams of what's going on. This kills me about Abrahamic religion. But I don't equate the lack of those sorts of pat ideas with utter meaninglessness.

In addition to a lot of nothing, we're surrounded by a whole lot of fancy stuff. I think the notion that it's all some kind of random hiccup would be the rare hypothesis. I don't mean us -- humans could easily be just what sprouted here best -- but I think it'd be a weird conclusion to decide that the 9999(etc)% of existence that we don't understand is meaningless, just because we haven't managed to figure it all out in a few thousand years.

Just my take, but it's important to me. I don't like conflating atheism with nihilism or "nothing-ism." That seems presumptuous and irrational to me, i.e., if religion doesn't explain everything, there must be "nothing." There's not nothing. There is Something. The fact that it's not a trite fable about the massive importance of humankind and who we have sex with and whether we eat pork makes it more meaningful, not less.

As you say, our lives can mean something to US, first of all. But as for whatever the big picture may be, we're obviously in it, and nothing we know of in our universe is without cause or effect. So, we come from somewhere, and we impact something. That takes "meaningless" off the table in my view.