Individual rights vs communal rights

The clash of values between individual civil liberties and the good of the community is tested again and again in the contemporary United States. It's there in the free speech rights of the Phelps clan to demonstrate their vengeful god's anger vs the rights of families to bury their innocent dead in peace; it's there in the so-called Second Amendment rights to own weapons of mass killing vs the community's right to safety from irresponsibly insane killers; it's there in the dubious rights of corporations to use their enormous wealth to anonymously influence the democratic process of our elections; and it's there in the ever-increasing, intrusive scrutiny of our bodies at airport security check-points.

We're reminded this week by a Russian journalist and by Chinese bloggers that Tucson is the price we Americans pay for freedom. The Tucson massacre would not have happened in either Russia or China -- first because government officials don't appear at such rallies without massive security measures, and second because their people are not so heavily armed.

Is the price worth paying? As hard as it is to say so in the wake of such awful personal and particular losses, how much freedom are we willing to give up to avoid the loss of innocent life?

It will always be a hard choice, and perhaps a shifting choice over time, between freedom and safety. Personally, I abhor guns, hunting, and gun glorification; so for me personally there's not a whit of loss in strict gun control. But that's a personal preference.

Putting that aside, I do not see how it can be justified to allow people free ownership of guns and ammo that are designed for nothing other than the rapid killing of large numbers of people. No hunter has any need for assault rifles or handguns that fire 33 rounds without reloading.

Obviously the other side can't argue it from a rational basis. For them, it's symbolic -- either what gun-power means to them psychologically or just the idea of having no governmental power restricting you.

There are precedents aplenty, however, if the courts want to use them: we have strict regulations that control the sale of prescription drugs; we have strict regulations that require licenses to fly airplanes and where those planes can to flown; and we even have regulations over who can get a license to operate a beauty salon -- to dye your hair, for crying out loud. Why can't we have stricter control of guns?

It's a psychological thing -- all bound up in our alpha male ideals and deep-seated anxieties about masculinity. And it's enforced by the lobbying clout and money of the NRA. You might say it's our testosterone-addicted society.

The simplest solution would combine biochemistry and the ballot box: vote for women candidates until we have a majority of women in our legislative bodies.

Ralph

An odd couple, married nonetheless

A 21 year old gay man and a 20 year old straight woman, both art students at the University of Worcester in England have married -- and it has upset the righteous defenders of marriage no end. They say it mocks the sanctity of marriage.

Their stated reason has something to do with art -- they are devoted companions who do all their art work together, even to getting the teachers to grade them as a unit. So they wanted to make their marriage part of their art.

I'm not sure I quite understand the art part of it. But what seems to upset the marriage-defenders so much is that they do not plan to have sex, and each will be free to see other people -- and they claim this is a more honest relationship, because they will be open about it when they do.

How different is this from other companionate marriages that are not sexual? We didn't hear protests from this crowd when astrophysicist Stephen Hawking's nurse married him, and I doubt there was much sex or procreating going on with this man who is paralyzed by ALS and has minimal motor ability to move his body.

How does this mock the sanctity of marriage more than Brittney Spears marrying on a whim in the wee hours after a drunken party, without quite realizing what she was doing? She made babies, only with some other man after she annulled that impulsive ceremony and married someone else, which also ended in a quick divorce so she could marry yet a third -- in between going to prison and rehab for her drug habit. Such a great example of the sanctity of marriage.

No, it's that little three letter word "gay," isn't it? There aren't all that many men paralyzed by ALS marrying, but open the door to saying "gay" and "marriage" in the same sentence, and it seems like a big threat.

But they have to come up with something better than "mocking the sanctity" or "not God's plan for populating the earth" to justify denying this equal protection right to a significant portion of the population.

Ralph

Obama's speech

A basketball arena filled with victory banners and accustomed to hard fought sports battles and screaming fans was hardly conducive to a solemn occasion. The crowd, including a large number of college students, seemed more excited than subdued; and they interrupted often with applause and even shouts and whistles. If you didn't listen to the words, you might have thought it was a campaign event.

But that was not President Obama's fault. His speech was written for a solemn occasion, and he tried to deliver it in that spirit. One commentator suggested that Tucson was reacting to the initial shame of having this event define their city, and the mood on Wednesday night was more to celebrate the heroes and take pride in the city's response to the tragedy.

Even in this setting, Obama took the role of the adult stepping in: to comfort for the losses, to praise those lost and especially those who helped save lives and restore order, and most importantly to call our nation to rise above the hatred and divisiveness and make America "live up to our children's expectations."

Read, apart from the cheering interruptions, his speech is very moving. Here are some excerpts that stood out for me:

You see, when a tragedy like this strikes, it is part of our nature to demand explanations -- to try and pose some order on the chaos and make sense out of that which seems senseless. Already we've seen a national conversation commence, not only about the motivations behind these killings, but about everything from the merits of gun safety laws to the adequacy of our mental health system. And much of this process, of debating what might be done to prevent such tragedies in the future, is an essential ingredient in our exercise of self-government.

But at a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized -- at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who happen to think differently than we do -- it's important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we're talking with each other in a way that heals, not in a way that wounds. . . .

For the truth is, none of us can know exactly what triggered this vicious attack. None of us can know with any certainty what might have stopped these shots from being fired, or what thoughts lurked in the inner recesses of a violent man's mind. Yes, we have to examine all the facts behind this tragedy. We cannot and will not be passive in the face of such violence. We should be willing to challenge old assumptions in order to lessen the prospects of such violence in the future. But what we cannot do is use this tragedy as one more occasion to turn on each other. That we cannot do. That we cannot do. . . .

If this tragedy prompts reflection and debate -- as it should -- let's make sure it's worthy of those we have lost. Let's make sure it's not on the usual plane of politics and point-scoring and pettiness that drifts away in the next news cycle. . . .

And if, as has been discussed in recent days, their deaths help usher in more civility in our public discourse, let’s remember that it is not because a simple lack of civility caused this tragedy, but rather because only a more civil and honest public discourse can help us face up to our challenges as a nation, in a way that would make them proud.

It should be because we want to live up to the example of public servants like John Roll and Gabby Giffords, who knew first and foremost that we are all Americans, and that we can question each other's ideas without questioning each other's love of country, and that our task, working together, is to constantly widen the circle of our concern so that we bequeath the American dream to future generations.

I believe we can be better. Those who died here, those who saved lives here - they help me believe. We may not be able to stop all evil in the world, but I know that how we treat one another is entirely up to us. I believe that for all our imperfections, we are full of decency and goodness, and that the forces that divide us are not as strong as those that unite us.

That's what I believe, in part because that's what a child like Christina Taylor Green believed. . . . She saw all this through the eyes of a child, undimmed by the cynicism or vitriol that we adults all too often just take for granted.

I want us to live up to her expectations. I want our democracy to be as good as she imagined it. I want America to be as good as she imagined it. All of us - we should do everything we can to make sure this country lives up to our children's expectations.

Amen.

Ralph

Poor S.P.

In a newly released video, She Who Shall Not Be Named tried to refudiate the criticism aimed at her, specifically for her "map" targeting Rep. Giffords.

I'm going to ignore the unfortunate "blood libel" reference, which just made things worse with its antisemitic reference. Instead, I want to focus on her duplicity. I started to call it hypocrisy, but I think you have to have some consciousness of the disparity for it to be hypocrisy. I think she is just such a non-reflective, self-referential non-thinker that she really doesn't get it.

Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC), third ranked House member, weighted in: "You know, Sarah Palin just can't seem to get it, on any front. I think that she's an attractive person, she is articulate. But I think intellectually, she seems not to be able to understand what's going on here."

In her video, she extols the belief in pure individual responsibility, with no mitigating circumstances:

Acts of monstrous criminality stand on their own. They begin and end with the criminals who commit them, not collectively with all the citizens of a state, not with those who listen to talk radio, not with maps of swing districts used by both sides of the aisle, not with law-abiding citizens who respectfully exercise their First Amendment rights at campaign rallies, not with those who proudly voted in the last election.

Every man is an island, according to this view. Nobody else bears a smidgen of responsibility.

OK, She Who, then explain how it is that you opposed the plans to build an Islamic Community Center and Mosque in lower Manhattan, built only out of peaceful motives and social responsibility, representing what is best in Islam.

Your objection, as I understand it, is that extremist members of that religion were responsible for 9/11. Therefore, this mosque, representing that religion, near "ground zero" would be a desecration of "sacred space."

But if this act of "monstrous criminality" was the the guilt only of the individuals who committed it, then why are you penalizing those who had no connection with them other than also being Muslims? The Imam and his wife who are planning the center had no more connection with the 9/11 attackers than you do with Jared Loughner.

She's right, when it comes to criminal responsibility. But no one is accusing She Who with criminal responsibility. We're talking about moral responsibility.

This is typical of the way She Who thinks, again and again. She just does not measure her own words and actions by the same yardstick that she uses for others. She can accuse others of doing exactly what she has done. And she -- I really believe it -- doesn't see the incongruity. She just doesn't get it. Really.

Ralph

Return to the Old Wild West: guns, guns, guns

The Gunfight at the O. K. Corral was a gunfight that took place on October 26, 1881 in Tombstone, Arizona Territory of the United States. . . .

The gunfight was part of what later became known as the "Arizona War" . . .[It] has been portrayed in numerous Western films. It has come to symbolize the struggle between legal authority and banditry and rustling in frontier towns of the Old West, where law enforcement was often weak or nonexistent. - [Wikipedia]

Just 130 years ago that was, but it seems like we're in danger of reverting to that kind of shoot-it-out mentality.

Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) has said, in response to calls for more gun control, that he wishes there had been one more gun in Tucson on Saturday. "I wish there had been one more gun there that day in the hands of a responsible person, that's all I have to say," Franks said.

There was. Joe Zamudio was coming out of a nearby drug store when the shooting erupted, and he rushed over to help subdue the killer. But he almost made it worse. He was carrying a gun in his pocket, and he almost shot the wrong man. Here is his story:

"I came out of that store, I clicked the safety off, and I was ready," he explained on Fox and Friends. I had my hand on my gun. I had it in my jacket pocket here. And I came around the corner like this." Zamudio demonstrated how his shooting hand was wrapped around the weapon, poised to draw and fire. As he rounded the corner, he saw a man holding a gun. "And that's who I at first thought was the shooter," Zamudio recalled. "I told him to 'Drop it, drop it!' "

But the man with the gun wasn't the shooter. He had wrested the gun away from the shooter. "Had you shot that guy, it would have been a big, fat mess," the interviewer pointed out.

Zamudio agreed. "I was very lucky. Honestly, it was a matter of seconds. Two, maybe three seconds between when I came through the doorway and when I was laying on top of [the real shooter], holding him down. So, I mean, in that short amount of time I made a lot of really big decisions really fast. … I was really lucky."

Lucky? Or just enough wise restraint? He said at first he hesitated to take out his gun for fear of being mistaken as a second gunman in the massacre.

An armed populace, ready to shoot it out, ready to make those quick judgments between who are the good guys and who the bad -- is that a good idea? I don't think so.

Ralph

A different kind of insanity

I feel the need to inject a note of comic relief here.

All those reports of hundreds of dead blackbirds falling from the sky, first in one place and then another. And then there was a story about lots of dead fish, I believe. Well, now we have the answer -- or at least one irrational, bible-based answer by a self-proclaimed woman prophet.

Cindy Jacobs and her husband have this ministry called Generals International, which seeks to "change society through prophecy and intercession." Her bio explains that "Cindy Jacobs is a respected prophet who travels the world ministering not only to crowds of people, but to heads of nations."

Their website has a new video in which Cindy explains that the recent spate of dead blackbirds and fish is God trying to talk to us through nature -- and that perhaps message of the dead birds is God's displeasure that we repealed Don't Ask, Don't Tell, which goes against his scripture that forbids homosexuality.

Well, that makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?

Ralph

Rachel gets it right

As usual, Rachel Maddow provided a liberal voice of sanity and reason in response to the Tucson massacre and assassination attempt.

Whether political rhetoric motivated this kid or not, whether this kid was sane enough to process political rhetoric as sane people understand it or not, whether we will understand sooner or later or never the motivation behind this kid...here's the question: do we have any tools to stop the next gun massacre?"

She then ran through a long list of mass gun shootings that have occurred in the United States in the 22 years since Jared Lee Loughner was born, then showed clips of politicians responding to these "unimaginable" happenings at the time (Columbine, VA Tech, etc.) "Inconceivable" and "unimaginable" are routinely used to describe these massacres. Rachel counters:

It is hard for anybody to find the words to express the horror and the anger and the grief that are the only rational responses to massacres like this. But the one thing that events like this are not, in America, now, is inconceivable or unimaginable.

We can discuss at length the effects of political hate speech and violent images. As a nation, we need to have an adult conversation about this, separated from heated political rants. But that is not the solution that we need to focus on in a case like this, or at least it is not the most salient solution.

This young man, obviously mentally ill and having caused concern among classmates, faculty, and neighbors, was nevertheless able -- perfectly legally -- to purchase a handgun and extended ammunition magazines, allowing for firing 30 rounds of bullets without having to reload.

We have laws that prevent selling guns to mentally disturbed people. But how do you get on lists that show up on background checks? That is where Jared fell through the cracks. He had no official designation as mentally ill, even though his college had handled his disruptive behavior appropriately by barring him from classes until he got mental health clearance. Absent overt threats, they had no authority to force him to seek help, nor to report him as mentally ill.

Despite our gun culture (collectively we Americans own 277,000,000 guns), and though we differ sharply on questions of gun control, we should be united in wanting to prevent the next such massacre when a mentally unbalanced, angry young man easily obtains guns designed for mass destruction -- and does just that -- destroys masses of people before he can be stopped.

We can't have that conversation until we get past the need to blame someone for this one.

Assigning blame in this case and discussing the effect of hate speech in political discourse should be two separate issues. So far, that's proving very difficult to do -- because the private demons in Jared's mind, that led him to think the government was trying to control his mind, seem to coincide with much of the right-wing paranoia about government taking over our lives. And he did, after all, go to a political event, shot a politician, and on his web site called it "my assassination."

Ralph

Gov. Deal

I have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised by one item in Gov. Nathan Deal's inaugural address -- his seeming rational, enlightened thoughts about treating drug addicts.

Picked up and featured on Huffington Post, Deal's agenda included this in his comments about drug addiction:

For violent and repeat offenders, we will make you pay for your crimes. For other offenders who want to change their lives, we will provide the opportunity to do so with Day Reporting Centers, Drug, DUI and Mental Health Courts and expanded probation and treatment options. As a State, we cannot afford to have so many of our citizens waste their lives because of addictions. It is draining our State Treasury and depleting our workforce.

AJC's political writer, Jim Galloway, pointed out that House Speaker David Ralston has also been commenting on the same problem -- so, as he said, "Maybe something's up."

Galloway also noted that Deal had put a lot of emphasis on transportation problems. In neither case did he propose specific solutions, but it gives me reason to wait and see before judging this career politician whose record suggests we're not likely to get much in the way of leadership or initiative from this governor. It may be just words of a good speech writer; but I'll wait and see.

Ralph

Ideological rage run amok #3 - Clueless?

Perhaps Sarah Palin is really clueless when it comes to her contribution to the atmosphere of violence. She is so imbued with gun culture that she has probably ceased to think of shooting as an act of violence.

Here is an email from her to Glenn Beck, which he shared publicly:

"I hate violence. I hate war. Our children will not have peace if politicos just capitalize on this to succeed in portraying anyone as inciting terror and violence. Thanks for all you do to send the message of truth and love and God as the answer."

In other words, she can say: "Don't retreat, reload." And put up a map with a gunsight trained on Gifford's district and her name to the side -- and refer to that same map as her "bullseye" map. But she is not a "politico inciting terror and violence." No, it's not she. It's those other "politicos" who portray others as inciting terror and violence.

Is she really clueless?

Of course the more realistic and cynical interpretation is that this email was carefully planted, knowing Beck would make it public. Maybe she's not clueless after all.

Ralph

Levels of discourse

Yesterday, I quoted Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, speaking about the "vitriol" and saying that "The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous." This was said in connection with his investigation of the shooting in Tucson.

Today, Megyn Kelly of Fox News, confronted him, asking if he had any evidence that the suspect was "listening to radio or watching television and was in any way inspired by what he heard or saw?" And, of course, he didn't have any such evidence. Nor was he suggesting a direct, one-to-one causation in this individual case. In contrast, there is evidence of a serious mental disturbance and disruptive behavior, leading up to this act.

Kelly persisted: "With respect, sheriff, I know that you're a Democrat and you ran for office as a Democrat, and I just want to press you on that a little. I'm sure some of our viewers are asking themselves why you are putting a political spin on this . . . they may be asking why you the sheriff aren't just focused on the facts, on uncovering the facts."

What we're dealing with here are two levels of discourse. At one level, let's call it the medico-legal level, we have a paranoid psychotic man, with delusions about the federal government controlling his life, who opens fire in a crowd and kills six people and wounds 12 others. Here the sheriff is off base and should stick to the facts.

Let's call the other level the socio-political level. Here the sheriff is quite right to raise the issue of the general level of vitriol preached on radio, television, and on the internet and what effect that has. Does it have an effect on us all? Yes. Does that include mentally unstable people. Yes. Can we prove that the suspect listened to any of this? Not yet, although it's hard to see how anyone living in Arizona could avoid it. Or anywhere else in the U.S., for that matter, if they watch or read the news at all. But did it order him to buy a gun and shoot his congresswoman? No.

Is Sarah Palin guilty of murder? No. Is Sarah Palin guilty of contributing to the discourse of violence in this country as a way to address your grievances? Not as much as if she were actually calling for Democrats to be assassinated, paying a bounty for each one killed, etc.

But in a more insidious, subtle way, she does contribute to that way of thinking with her gun metaphors and her slogans (don't retreat; reload). At the least, I would say she is playing with fire and intentionally stirring up less stable, angry, and often paranoid people.

If we keep clear about the two levels of discourse, though, we won't have quite so much to argue about, which might open the possibility for really addressing the problem. Kelly probably wouldn't deny that the vitriol exists and has reached a dangerous level -- if she didn't need to defend her conservative base from being held "responsible" for what happened.

And the sheriff wouldn't need to keep insisting that the vitriol is dangerous, if the other side would agree that it is.

Ralph

Ideological rage run amok #2

As reported by HuffingtonPost/AP:

Pima County [Tucson] . . . sheriff blamed the vitriolic political rhetoric that has consumed the country, much of it centered in Arizona.

"When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government. The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous," he said. "And unfortunately, Arizona, I think, has become the capital. We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry."

Giffords expressed similar concern, even before the shooting. In an interview after her office was vandalized, she referred to the animosity against her by conservatives, including Sarah Palin's decision to list Giffords' seat as one of the top "targets" in the midterm elections.

"For example, we're on Sarah Palin's targeted list, but the thing is, that the way that she has it depicted has the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they have to realize that there are consequences to that action," Giffords said in an interview with MSNBC.

In the hours after the shooting, Palin issued a statement in which she expressed her "sincere condolences" to the family of Giffords and the other victims.

During his campaign effort to unseat Giffords in November, Republican challenger Jesse Kelly held fundraisers where he urged supporters to help remove Giffords from office by joining him to shoot a fully loaded M-16 rifle. Kelly is a former Marine who served in Iraq and was pictured on his website in military gear holding his automatic weapon and promoting the event.

"I don't see the connection," between the fundraisers featuring weapons and Saturday's shooting, said John Ellinwood, Kelly's spokesman. "I don't know this person, we cannot find any records that he was associated with the campaign in any way. I just don't see the connection.

"Arizona is a state where people are firearms owners - this was just a deranged individual."

This is a real problem -- that they don't see the connection. No, I am not saying that the political rhetoric of violence caused this shooting. No one gave this disturbed young man orders to shoot Giffords and put a loaded gun in his hands. Nor am I even saying that it was a major factor in this individual case. Prior evidence suggests that he was a very disturbed young man with paranoid thinking, which quite typically focuses on government as the enemy. Senseless, paranoid killings have taken place in the calmest of environments.

Nor am I suggesting that those who promote the proper use of shooting weapons are to blame. People kill people even where there are not many guns. Easily available assault guns make it easier to kill lots of people fast before the shooter can be stopped.

But words do have consequences. Individual minor influences do add up in the psychotic minds of those who kill. And these particular people, attending this particular event, got wounded and killed. Ironically, this anti-government psychotic man killed a government official who had come to listen to the people, not to impose government on them.

I think it is a problem that radio/tv entertainers and politicians who encourage hatred and violence, who push the idea that your political enemy is a mortal enemy and should be eliminated -- it's a problem that they don't realize that this rhetoric contributes to the culture of violent solutions to perceived problems. It all adds up -- and it takes only one deranged mind to put their rhetoric into tragic action.

What I would like to see is that this not turn into an even fiercer battle over gun rights or civility in public discourse. I would like to see Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck take the lead in publicly calling a halt to this culture of hate and violence in favor of rational discourse and civil negotiation.

Ralph