Facepalm

Daily Kos: Conservative arguments against gun reform continue to be not at all ridiculous

Thu, 09 May 2013 13:28:49 -0700

Daily Kos: Conservative arguments against gun reform continue to be not at all ridiculous:

When the gun nuts are positioning the post-apocalyptic horror worlds of Stephen King as an example of something to aspire to, you know they’re getting a tad desperate.

A quick notation on the above. I’m a Red Sox fan, who...

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 14:36:54 -0700

A quick notation on the above.

I’m a Red Sox fan, who lived in NYC for 12 years. I understand that this shirt is a Sox/Yanks rivalry shirt. I understand Nike pulling it out of respect, not going to talk about that.

What I will mention is the actual Boston Massacre, March 5, 1770, when British soldiers fired into an angry mob of Bostonians, killing five. Keep in mind, we weren’t yet free from British rule, yet had our sights on a declaration of independence from the crown. Here you have the enemy firing into a crowd, killing citizens. Of course there were calls to be brutal with these soldiers.

And yet, it was John Adams - who would become our 2nd President not too long after this - that stood up and defended the soldiers in a fair trial. Why? Because that’s the example they wanted to set. In Adams’ words:

The Part I took in Defence of Cptn. Preston and the Soldiers, procured me Anxiety, and Obloquy enough. It was, however, one of the most gallant, generous, manly and disinterested Actions of my whole Life, and one of the best Pieces of Service I ever rendered my Country.

Compare that ‘disinterested’ focus on fairness and the rule of law in a time of increased passions and fear with what Jon Stewart so cleverly pointed out last night: those on the right that claim to LOVE LOVE LOVE this country and its freedoms are clamoring to abandon just about every Amendement out there (except the 2nd, of course) because, again, citizens of Boston were wrongfully killed by a few men. And the right is stirring up fear fear fear!

It’s a stark contrast.

frants: crysomemoar: Our ways of communication have...

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 22:53:15 -0700

frants:

crysomemoar:

Our ways of communication have changed, shouldn’t our 1st amendment?
text, phone, email, social media, ect.

If you take one right away and/modify it, you will start to let the government do it to all of them until you have communism.

While you’re right, our 1st Amendment hasn’t been “rewritten”, there have been centuries of laws and court cases to continue to define its meaning as the country has evolved. Amendment or not, rights are not unlimited. You can’t yell “fire” in a crowded theater, though that specific example only became relevant when there were theaters to yell “fire” in. Your rights extend only so far, up to where they begin to infringe on others’ rights. Your right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness gets no special favor over mine or anyone else’s. That’s how we all get along in a country of millions.

So yes, as technology has changed, we’ve written laws that, in their basest form, could be considered as a violation of the 1st Amendment: I can’t text or call you three times a day threatening to kill you, I can’t email you false material to trick you into sending me money for my uncle in Nigeria. You can say, “Hey, first amendement, I can threaten to kill anyone I want!” But that’s how you live on your own, not how you live within a society.

No one is seriously talking about ‘changing’ the 2nd Amendement. The discussions out there - expanding background checks, limiting extended magazines, cracking down on interstate gun trafficking, prohibiting private purchase of assault weapons, requiring liability insurance for each firearm owned - are all adapting to the evolution of the world, just as laws addressing texts and emails have for the 1st Amendement. These changes are to serve to protect my rights from being unlawfully infringed by the presumed free exercise of someone else’s rights; it’s to allow for a mature society that doesn’t destroy itself. The forefathers never considered online firearm purchase, or an ease of travel that would allow anyone to efficiently transport huge amounts of weapons across multiple state lines, or the ability to shoot 30 high-velocity rounds in the space of a minute. As the technology changes and society’s means of communication, travel, et al evolves, it’s up to us, our lawmakers, and judicial system to look at the ‘spirit’ of the law.

Even the little-referenced 3rd Amendment was more specifically defined in a Supreme Court case in 1982. Fourth Amendment cases have looked to define “search” and “seizure”. And, to reference a take where society’s need is greater than that of the individual, roadblocks have been deemed legal when searching for a fleeing criminal or bomb, but not as an indiscriminate reason to search any vehicle you like. What constitutes the 8th Amendment’s “cruel and unusual punishment” has changed with society over the years, too.

Chief Justice Warren said in ‘58: The [Eighth] Amendment must draw its meaning from the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.” That’s what we’re talking about here. You can’t always take a word’s definition (legal or otherwise) from 1789 and apply it the same way today: you have to look at what it meant then, and then discover what the spirit of that meaning is today.

The 1st Amendment says “freedom of speech”, but that doesn’t mean you can say ANYTHING ANYWHERE TO ANYONE (though you can stand in front of the White House and preach just about anything you like and not be arrested). The 2nd Amendment says “right to bear arms”, but it doesn’t mean you get ALL THE GUNS ANYTIME YOU WANT. We’re not rewriting the Bill of Rights, but you can keep the spirit of the society they aspired to create whilst still evolving the definitions of what they mean in active practice today.

Guns have changed. Shouldn’t our gun laws?

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 10:14:29 -0700

Guns have changed. Shouldn’t our gun laws?

SUVs, Guns, and Expectations

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 16:47:14 -0700

I read an article in the New Yorker back in 2004, a piece by Malcolm Gladwell called “Big and Bad”. In it, Gladwell explores the curious mindset that many Americans have with what makes a car “safe”. He points out that in Europe and Japan, when you ask consumers which car is the safest, they almost always say a small car, like a Camry or a Jetta. The reason: low to the ground, light, and nimble, such cars allow you to avoid accidents. Little skidding, no roll-over, and not so heavy as to prevent a necessary swerve.

But as someone who is quoted in the article points out, the following is a mindset almost exclusive to North America:

The metric that people use is size. The bigger something is, the safer it is. In the consumer’s mind, the basic equation is, if I were to take this vehicle and drive it into this brick wall, the more metal there is in front of me the better off I’ll be.

Ask Americans which car is the safest, and they invariably choose the big ones: the Ford F150s, the Lincoln Navigators, the H2s. They figure when an accident happens, it’s safest to be up high, and with as much ‘tank’ between you and the other car as possible.

It’s an ‘active’ versus ‘passive’ outlook. Other consumers around the world hear safety and think, “How can I best avoid an accident?” Americans, on the other hand, think, “If I’m in an accident, how can I avoid getting hurt?” There’s an inevitability to it that’s a bit saddening: Americans are expecting an accident to happen. It’s coming, so be ready for it.

The irony, as Gladwell points out, is that the big, heavy SUVs cause more accidents to begin with. They’re fulfilling their own prophecy, so to speak.

It’s what happens when a larger number of drivers conclude, consciously or otherwise, that the extra thirty feet that the TrailBlazer takes to come to a stop don’t really matter, that the tractor-trailer will hit them anyway, and that they are better off treating accidents as inevitable rather than avoidable.

I bring this up, because yesterday the NRA released its student-safety plan, entitled School Shield. Its “solutions” are pretty much what you would expect: armed guards, armed teachers, relaxing concealed carry restrictions on school grounds.

But what reminded me of the Gladwell SUV article was some of the other, architectural recommendations: replacing exterior windows and classroom door glass with bullet-proof glass, welding door hinges to their frames to make the doors harder to breach. They’re basically saying the same thing about school safety and guns that Americans say about auto safety and SUVs: “It is inevitable that a madman with an AR-15 will walk into a school and start shooting, so turn every school into a fortress to make it harder for him to do so.” It’s as if the problem is that schools make it too easy for guys with guns to breach them, not that there are bad guys with guns to begin with.

Is that the country we live in now? Where it’s considered inevitable, almost normal, to expect gunman to enter schools (or any public place) and gun down innocents? Obviously, if it is inevitable, then the only solution is to put guards everywhere and add iron plating to every single point of ingress in every single public building. That’s what “School Shield” recommends: turning a school into a shield against the inevitable.

Or, we can say that we can choose to live in a country where we don’t accept that the accident is going to happen. We can choose the small car when we decide we want safety, because when a potentially deadly situation occurs, that car allows us to control it and more likely avoid it.

The problem isn’t that there’s an accident coming and we have to put steel around us. The problem is that we can try to avoid the accident to begin with, and we’re not.

Sometimes a mop sink is just a mop sink. Building managers and...

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 09:25:58 -0700

Sometimes a mop sink is just a mop sink. Building managers and legislative staffers have sought to reassure some concerned Tennessee lawmakers that recent renovations at the state Capitol did not install special facilities for Muslims to wash their feet before praying.

Whew, that was a close one. Another win for FREEDOM!!!!!

Oh sure, people claim to want to cut spending (nevermind that...

Sat, 23 Feb 2013 11:57:28 -0800

Oh sure, people claim to want to cut spending (nevermind that 94% of the population don’t know the deficit is actually decreasing). But when asked what exactly to cut, no one wants to cut anything. In fact, it seems there are quite a few calls to increase certain spending.

What to do…

(source: Wonkblog)

"I continue to be amazed at the general belief that the supposed greatest country in the world..."

Sun, 17 Feb 2013 09:20:44 -0800

“I continue to be amazed at the general belief that the supposed greatest country in the world can’t possibly afford any nice things for its people.”

- You’re right to be amazed, Atrios.

Myth: “Public Sector Jobs” are millions...

Sun, 03 Feb 2013 10:54:23 -0800

Myth: “Public Sector Jobs” are millions of bureaucrats ordering steak dinners in DC with your tax dollars.

Reality check from Mother Jones.

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 10:42:21 -0800

Reality check from Mother Jones.

Another day, another shooting. This time, two people having an...

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 12:54:13 -0800

Another day, another shooting. This time, two people having an argument decided it was important enough to attempt to take the other’s life.

Watching coverage on MNSBC, I just saw two different guests focus their attention on television, video games, and the ‘culture’ contributing to gun violence.

I am sick of this lazy thinking. First, as the graph above helps remind you, WE ARE NOT THE ONLY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD WHO WATCHES THESE FILMS AND PLAYS THESE GAMES. We are, however, the only country in the world that has 300 million guns, a patchwork structure of regulations for them, and numerous loopholes. Seems to me the only difference between us and the rest of the developed countries isn’t the episodes of 24 or a Sunday matinee of Django Unchained or an extended weekend of playing Call of Duty 4…

…the difference between those countries and 10,000 gun deaths a year is the guns.

(graph source)

"No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor..."

Sat, 12 Jan 2013 09:52:44 -0800

“No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.”

- That’s the little-cited Third Amendment. Back when we were severing our ties with the British and starting our own little party, this was a big grievance. One of the many “taxes” the British put on the colonists was for us to pay to house their troops, and if no barracks were available, the troops would just set up anywhere. Your house, maybe.

It doesn’t have much relevance today. There has been the odd case here and there that’s cited it, but the most direct case (Engblom v. Carey, 1982) seems to have more to do with a labor strike dispute. It’s a perfect reminder of how the Bill of Rights were written in a specific time, quite different from our world in 2013.

Remember Billionaires for Bush? The satirical, ironic ‘protestors’ who’d dress up in top hats and tuxes and hold signs supporting the GOP agenda? I think, in this current debate on gun safety (in which few are calling for an outright destruction of the 2nd Amendment; more focus on the ‘well-regulated’ part of it), we could use another satirical protest group, shouting at the top of its lungs that it will NOT QUARTER A SOLDIER IN A TIME OF PEACE WITHOUT MY CONSENT!!! Let’s treat all the Amendments with the same over-the-top vigor that the gun lobby does with the 2nd, and see if we can include a little perspective. The Bill of Rights wasn’t written in a vacuum. They were looking out their window at a very specific world and thinking what they wanted to do. That window view is much different today. You don’t ignore the Constitution. But you need to start looking at its spirit in order to keep it relevant in this completely different era.

There’s a scene in Spielberg’s Oscar-nominated film...

Thu, 10 Jan 2013 19:33:37 -0800

There’s a scene in Spielberg’s Oscar-nominated film Lincoln featuring an old Derringer muzzle-loading pistol. It’s meant to be a comic scene, within a montage in which James Spader’s character has been relentlessly persuading members of Congress to vote for the 13th Amendment. He’s weary, tired from all the people he’s been talking to, and falling asleep at a table next to a Congressman reading over the bill.

Once the Congressman realizes what it is, he draws his pistol. Spader panics, they wrestle, and the gun fires into the air. Spader starts to run away, then realizes the bill is on the ground, he needs it, stops, turns, runs back, picks it up, bumbling, turns, and takes off again.

Within that little bit of schtick, which takes maybe 8 seconds, the shooter is reloading: bringing out his gunpowder, pouring some in, loading it, cocking it, pointing it. He fires again, but Spader is long gone.

This scene takes place in 1865, 74 years after the ratification of the Bill of Rights, containing the 2nd Amendement. So this handgun, that required time enough to load to allow a bit of comic slapstick from James Spader, is three-quarters of a century further along in firearms technology from when our forefathers decided to allow a well-regulated militia to bear arms.

Imagining how that scene might have played out, had the shooter had an AR-15 with a 30-round clip, I find it hard to believe that John Adams and James Madison would have said, “Yeah, let’s let everyone have one of those. Or as many as they wish.”

And poor James Spader would’ve had a much smaller role in the film.

Sure, the platinum coin idea is silly. But yes, it seems to be...

Wed, 09 Jan 2013 09:30:19 -0800

Sure, the platinum coin idea is silly. But yes, it seems to be legal, and threatening not to raise the debt ceiling is also silly (and dangerous).

But come on, let’s at least have an discussion based in reality.

- No, you do not need $1 trillion in platinum for a $1 trillion platinum coin. Do you think there’s $100 worth of cotton in each $100 bill? Fiat currency: look it up.

- It’s not to “pay for [Obama’s} spending”. The President does not have the power to spend money, Congress does. The debt ceiling raise merely allows Treasury to borrow more money to pay for the things Congress already voted for.

It astounds me that so many on the right think (or portray...

Tue, 01 Jan 2013 09:54:10 -0800

It astounds me that so many on the right think (or portray themselves as thinking) that if small businesses have extra money lying around because of low taxes, they’ll automatically go spend it to hire more people.

Business doesn’t hire more employees just because they have the money to do it. They hire more employees to meet increased demand for their product or service. When the middle- and lower-class citizens don’t have jobs or disposable income, there is little demand. So either the businesses need to unwisely spend money they don’t have to spend just because they have it, or we need to focus on increasing demand.

The GOP is focused on giving money to the rich (Job Creators™) and counting on them to spend the country out of recession and high unemployment. They aren’t doing that. They’re pocketing the money as profit (as any smart business owner would do). So let’s try something else.

To the people saying “it’s the culture, it’s...

Wed, 19 Dec 2012 07:23:57 -0800

To the people saying “it’s the culture, it’s those violent video games”. Newsflash, the US doesn’t live in a bubble. Those same video games are played in other countries around the world. And guess what: no correlation with gun violence.

(Source: WaPo)

The GOP's Plan

Thu, 13 Dec 2012 09:42:18 -0800

Maddow was on her game last night, covering all the ways in which the GOP - instead of adapting their brand to actually appeal to a majority of voters - is spending its time and money trying to rig the system. 2010 gerrymandering, attempts to distribute electoral votes by congressional district, union busting, voter ID/registration laws.

Seriously, watch the whole thing, if you can.

think-progress: Corporate profits are at an all-time high....

Mon, 03 Dec 2012 07:04:50 -0800

think-progress:

Corporate profits are at an all-time high. Worker wages are at an all-time low.

Read more at ThinkProgress.

Nutz

Thu, 15 Nov 2012 08:12:07 -0800

Here are just a few of the conspiracy theories popping up, just today, in my political RSS feed:

- Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) suggests the FBI was blackmailing Petraeus to force him to testify favorably in his Benghazi session with Congress.

- The head of Maine’s GOP has suspicions about Obama winning Maine by 100,000 votes: “In some parts of rural Maine, there were dozens, dozens of black people who came in and voted on Election Day. Everybody has a right to vote, but nobody in town knows anyone who’s black. How did that happen? I don’t know. We’re going to find out….”

- American Family Association hack Bryan Fischer has minorities figured out. Hispanics do not vote Democratic because of the issue of immigration but rather because “they are socialists by nature” who want open borders simply so that they can bring in their families to “benefit from the plunder of the wealth of the United States.”

- Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) suspects the United Nations of trying to take over our gun regulation.

- The Fox News Channel questions the new high jobless numbers, which Fox’s own website attributes to Hurricane Sandy. FNC personalities call the Department of Labor “sketchy”.

- Glenn Beck claims that Obama has intentionally ‘set-up’ General Petraeus in order to discredit the military.

That’s all just this morning in my feed. They’re going all-in on the crazy. But it continues to be all for show. Because also this morning, we find this little tidbit about John McCain, who has been on the war path questioning Benghazi:

John McCain is calling for more information to Congress, but he had a press conference yesterday instead of going to a closed briefing where administration officials were giving more information. Well, Ted Barrett asked John McCain about that, and it was apparently an intense very angry exchange and McCain simply would not comment on it at all.

Four more years of this? Or are they gearing up for impeachment?

"But the president succeeded by suppressing the vote, by saying to people, ‘you may not like who I am..."

Thu, 08 Nov 2012 12:42:13 -0800

“But the president succeeded by suppressing the vote, by saying to people, ‘you may not like who I am and I know you can’t bring yourself to vote for me, but I’m going to paint this other guy as simply a rich guy who only cares about himself’.”

- See, normally, when a candidate running for office tells voters not to vote for his or her opponent, this is called “running for office”.

But to Karl Rove, when it’s Obama, it’s called “suppressing the vote”. Another example of the classic Rovian technique of taking your greatest weakness (i.e. GOP voter suppression tactics) and painting your opponent with it.

Why does that tend to work? Because A) no one expects anyone to actually have the balls to do it, so when it is done, it’s out there first. So B) when the person Rove is smearing responds by saying, “Actually, the other side is the one guilty of this, not me”, the media then just covers the horse race as “both sides accuse the other of the same thing.” The facts become irrelevant, and Rove’s side’s greatest weakness has now become diluted.

The question is, after the thumping the right just got (made worse for them by the factless optimism), can they keep this shit up and stay relevant?