Now About that Second Amendment

Not many but the most fringe elements want to outlaw all guns. Most however, think we need some kind of common sense regulation of the acquisition and ownership of firearms.

When the 2nd Amendment was written, the latest technology in firearms was rifling the barrels! Modern, high-velocity ammo, high-capacity magazines, and auto-loading were not even a fantasy! Guns were for the most part single shot flintlock muzzle loaders. High tech might be a rifled barrel!

Let's break down the Second Amendment: 

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

The first part of the Amendment only makes sense in the context of the time it was written as well. The founders wrote that the nation neither needed nor could afford a standing army. Therefore a militia was required if a threat to the nation was to be dealt with. Like in Switzerland to this day, after an initial service, everybody is required to be ready to be called up in a moments notice if there is a threat. We no longer require this. We now have a standing military, and the state and national guards. The largest by far in the world today. Yes, I am aware that the Supreme Court somehow found in Heller that the Second Amendment protects an individual's Right to keep and bear arms, unconnected with service in a militia. I can't for the life of me understand how those supposedly brilliant writers of this Amendment could have intentionally penned something so ambiguous! Actually, I contend that they did no such thing. I believe they wrote precisely what they meant. They knew that linking gun ownership and militias was critical.

As Alexander Hamilton opined in his Concerning the Militia essay published in 1788: "... it will be possible to have an excellent body of well-trained militia, ready to take the field whenever the defense of the State shall require it. This will not only lessen the call for military establishments, but if circumstances should at any time oblige the Government to form an army of any magnitude, that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the People, while there is a large body of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights, and those of their fellow-citizens. This appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it, if it should exist."

18th century laws governing a 21st century nation. It makes no sense! Our constitution was written to govern a nation of mostly farmers, miners & loggers, not forgetting slaves and Native Americans, with a population under four million. It was so inadequate that it needed to be amended twenty-seven times, most recently on May 5, 1992! We now expect this document to guide the governance of over three hundred million individuals, mostly urban dwellers, in an age where near-instant global communication is the norm and tensions are exacerbated by weapons capable of destroying the world if the contamination caused by overpopulation and exploitation of resources don't destroy it first.

We need to rewrite the Constitution of the United States just as a start. It does not reflect the realities of the twenty first century.

As the right loves to point out for some reason, America was founded as a Republic, not a pure democracy, like Athens was. It's claimed that pure democracies tend to devolve to mob rule, and are easily manipulated by demagogues so they tend to devolve into dictatorships. Okay fine. 

But a nation where everyone owns guns is effectively a mob. By decoupling the militia from legitimate authority, the NRA and GOP have been either accidentally or deliberately setting the stage for a dictatorship for decades.

Which brings us to the other thing about the second Amendment. I keep hearing, usually from woefully uninformed Second Amendment supporters, that Hitler was able to take power by banning guns. The exact opposite is true! Hitler deregulated guns for 99% of the German population. He reduced the age at which it was legal to purchase a gun from 20 to 18, he removed all restrictions on purchasing rifles, and he expanded the number of classes that didn't have to get a license to purchase a handgun. German militias (known as freikorps, literally "free corps") put Hitler in power. 

Which gets us back to the first part of the Second Amendment again: "well regulated militia". That doesn't seem to mean a bunch of Wolverine wannabes camping out and playing soldier in the woods somewhere. Again, the writers wrote precisely what they meant. Well regulated meant by the government. As Hamilton explained further in Federalist #29 quoted above: "This desirable uniformity can only be accomplished by confiding the regulation of the militia to the direction of the national authority."

Pretty unambiguous if you ask me. 

Found this recently in an article on Huffington Post about the Conservative knack for re-ordering history. On this occasion, bemoaning the fact that the stimulus "failed to avert the recession."

It's just too cool not to re-post:

"Conservatism: a delusional force so powerful it can bend the space-time continuum." ~RJ Eskow

For the rest of the article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rj-eskow/five-years-after-the-stim_b_4812113.html

Twofer

Two topics in one today: So called "Clean Coal" & our Corporate Media. First off let me direct you to this article over at Media Matters.

Should you not care to read it, in brief it talks about yet another toxic coal ash spill in North Carolina. It is an example yet again of the callous disregard on the part of the coal industry for the environment and human health. Another example (as if we need it) of the poisoning of the environment caused not just by big coal, but by the production and use of fossil fuels in general.

The more important take away from this, however, is the complete lack of coverage, or even mention of this environmental tragedy in our network news broadcasts. They are content to keep us distracted with the crisis in the Ukraine, the pretty videos and heart-wrenching tales of triumph and defeat from the Olympics, and I see they have managed after all these years to capture "El Chapo." 

"panem et circenses"

Now for something different...

Cicada

     The town hadn't changed much, just looked deader than he remembered. Yeah, there's the old Monte Vista hotel. I should stop in and have a beer, see if Roxy still works there. Later. There'd be time for that later. Besides, after all this time old Roxy probably doesn't look any where near as good anymore. Jack felt his face crease into a grin as he drove by the Romeo Savings and Loan. The big plate glass windows dark and lifeless. God! Did I do that? Just like the town, like a fossil, Jack thinks. Yeah, that's it, just a huge fossil. The town was dying a slow death, like so many other small towns in America as the young left for the big cities. Autumn leaves drift across the street and collect against the silent walls. The beer signs in the saloon windows garish spots of color on a cold gray day. 

Why aren't we even talking about this?

It's been quite a while since I've posted anything. The situation seems so immune to change. But at least I can bellyache even if I can't change anything.

Why is it that in every discussion about budget cuts, including those coming from the President and other high-level Democrats, there is little to nothing said about the military? 

We have something on the order of over 900 Flag Officers (Generals & Admirals) each with million dollar retinues to cater to their every whim. They have six-figure salaries, government provided mansions, cars and private jets. And when they retire on their six-figure retirement plans, a lot of them join companies like Raytheon, GE, Lockheed or the like to peddle more waste back to Congress and their erstwhile colleagues in the military. The waste here is incredible! How many kids could we educate with the savings from just slashing these cadres in half?

Why do we need to have over 700 military bases scattered around the world, not even counting the ones we built in Iraq and Afghanistan? How long could we extend Medicare for just the savings of closing half of those bases?

Why on earth do we need eleven aircraft carriers, when the rest of the world combined has only ten? And most of those belong to our allies. How many billions are spent each year on these carrier groups? How many years could Social Security be extended if we just reduced the size of our Navy by half?

The Pentagon plans to buy a total of 2,443 F-35 fighters at a rough average cost of around two hundred million dollars apiece. For what? Blowing up more goat-herders in the Middle East? I won't even suggest depriving the Generals and Congress their shiny new jets, but if they just cut that number by half, they'd save $244 billion dollars! How many bridges and highways could be repaired with that money?

But what are we arguing about? How big of a tax break we will be giving millionaires and corporations. And how many benefits we will be slashing to the poor and the elderly.

What the fuck are we doing?

On "Liberty"

Our Founding Fathers rode on horseback. They wrote with a quill. You could pay a doctor with a chicken, if he didn't kill you first. Rifled muzzle loaders were high tech.

They could not have even envisioned the world of today in their wildest dreams. That is why the Constituti­on has had to be amended twenty-sev­en times! A strong and competent national government is the only entity able to address the issues we need to deal with both locally and globally. Emphasis on the word "competent." Not a government bought and paid for by the one percent, but a government that truly represents and works for the people.

I have recently been hearing Republicans spewing the total nonsense that the reason the Democrats push for more social welfare programs is to further take away our "liberties." Huh? Say whut? Yep, it seems the the whole plot is to make us all dependent on the government for everything so we'll have no choice but to vote Democrat!

Does that not seem insane? If it doesn't, you're likely a Republican and a habitual viewer of Faux News. In which case, what the devil are you doing here?

"Liberty" is a great bumper sticker, but it is meaningles­s if you don't have decent healthcare­, a process for making sure that our foods and drugs are safe, and that the environmen­t will still be livable for our children's children.

Romney and his cohorts have worked hard all their lives to degrade all of the above. What good will your precious liberty do you when the only jobs available all pay starvation wages?

America as a third world country

You don't think we're there yet? Check out this Google search result.

Was I Googling for Haiti? Pakistan? Fucking Cuba?

 Nope, I searched for "tent city America". The so-called "Recession" has resulted in these popping up from Seattle to Portland, Maine. From Los Angeles to Miami and all stops in between. These people, for the most part, are folks just like you and me. Caught in the trap of having lost their jobs, used up their unemployment insurance, and kicked out of their homes, they are camping out in hopes of a better day.

While the 1% get richer and the Politicians argue whether to give them more tax breaks or the right to pollute our environment so they can steal more money from this land, local governments are trying to deal with the homeless problem.

How? By passing new and tougher laws criminalizing homelessness.

It's starting to look like a significant portion of the voting public won't be able to bestir themselves to get to the polls in Nov '12 unless something changes radically. The Republicans don't seem to have a candidate they can rally around, and the left is pretty much disgusted with Obama. Of course, the center never really cared much either way, so their vote is completely up for grabs.

So which way will it go? Who the hell am I to try to predict.

But thinking about this has brought me to a realization of sorts. In the long run, it might be a good thing for the country if the Republicans won overwhelmingly. They have dug themselves so deep into the Tea Party line, that four more years of Republican insanity just might wake the country up from its fat, happy slumber.

Can you imagine, not just repealing Obamacare, but eliminating Medicare? How about privatizing Social Security? Eliminating the FDA and EPA? The Department of Education? All gone.

How long do you suppose it will take before we have rivers catch fire again? Until the smog in major cities makes Beijing look like paradise? How many will die from salmonella or e-coli? When all our kids are going to for-profit schools? We can barely regulate the drug companies now, what about when all our pharmaceuticals are being imported from China?

Oh, and we'll be accelerating the race to the bottom in wages, until everybody is working for Wal-Mart salaries. But it's OK, you'll be able to supplement your income with the hours you work every week at your second job at McDonald's.

If the country can survive it, maybe we'll be able to get together and force a movement to get the profiteers out of government and put the country back on a sane track.

*sigh* Or not. Your mileage may vary.

Of Hell & Handbaskets

After all the smoke and fury of the debt ceiling "debates", what exactly have we accomplished?

Nothing positive that I can see. It's still likely that the rating agencies will lower our coveted AAA status. After all, this debacle was the equivalent of buying a car on credit, then a year or two into the process, having a very  loud debate in the lobby of the bank in front of the manager's office over whether or not you cared to continue payment on the loan. Sound silly? It is!

We were not debating whether to run up more debt, we were debating whether we were going to pay for all the stuff Congress already bought.

So is the resultant agreement going to solve anything? Nope. In fact, the austerity measures called for in the bill without any attempt to raise revenues will likely choke off any hope of recovery from the recession, and may arguably worsen it. The Republicans held hostage by the Tea Party will not even discuss anything having to do with raising taxes on their wealthy overlords, and without at least repealing the Bush tax cuts, there is a popsicle's chance in hell of bringing down the deficit. Not with billions going to wars in the Middle East and to supporting a military that spends more than all the other developed nations in the world combined.


The only thing that will solve our deficit, and the recession, is jobs. Not jobs at Wal-Mart or McDonalds, but real, full-time jobs that pay a living wage. Failing that, collect taxes from the wealthy and corporations that are  currently paying less than the janitors that clean their offices. Even better, do both and use the funds to rebuild America's crumbling infrastructure. There's a job creator!

Cutting all those government funds is going to mean more layoffs, not less. People that lose a good paying job and are forced into a low wage position won't be buying new cars, or homes, or anything more than basic food and rent. They likely won't have health insurance either, at a time when Medicare and Medicaid are under the axe.

When the Republicans took office last year, they promised a "relentless focus on creating jobs".

So far, all we've seen is a relentless focus on driving the country off a cliff, just so they can hopefully blame it all on Obama next year.

I'm not seeing anything to feel positive about.

Aitch Eff See Ess

There is a huge controversy about High Fructose Corn Syrup, or H.F.C.S. What it is, what it does, and is it a cheap sweetener, or poison. I've done a lot of research on the subject, and the best I can come up with is: all of the above.

H.F.C.S. is a derivative of corn. A leftover, if you will, processed with enzymes, of the procesesses that render corn into myriad different products that are finding their way into our food supply these days.

Because corn is subsidized by our government, (another post coming on that) H.F.C.S. and other corn products like, for example, ethanol, are cheap and abundant. We grow more corn in the US than any other crop. H.F.C.S. finds its way into a myriad of food products that would surprise most consumers. I recently bought a box of saltines only to find that H.F.C.S. was prominent among its list of ingredients.

Saltines, really?

Anyway, to my point; H.F.C.S. has some very negative effects on our health that have been documented in great detail elsewhere, but even more important is the fact that sugars are being added to our diet without our knowledge across the board by manufacturers seeking, to put it simply, make their products taste better.

So what's wrong with that? Shouldn't a manufacturer of a food product want to make it as tasty as possible?

Well of course. But this amounts to cheating. Just think; would you have a problem with Coca Cola if they were still putting cocaine in their sodas to hook your kids on them? But that's different, you say; cocaine's an addictive drug! I submit that the added sugars in most prepared foods are the same. Especially for kids. We're not talking about candy and pop here. We're talking about things like my saltines, breads, sauces, canned tomatoes, cereal, shoot look for yourself.

At best there are no health benefits, in fact, they are greatly contributing to the obesity epidemic in the US. In addition, HFCS has been liked to liver and kidney disease. It's not a coincidence that the beginnings of the type two diabetes increase and the introduction of HFCS into the market occur over the identical time period.

Read the labels, guys! You are gonna be shocked at how many products contain HFCS, or just sugar, for that matter.

Overused Euphemism of the Year

"Sleeping"

Not as in "Shhh...the baby's sleeping." More like "Mike is sleeping with his secretary!" or "Representative X is sleeping with her husband's accountant!"

C'mon guys. Especially the press. Shirley there is another way to get across that someone is screwing someone. Why "sleeping" for fertheluvvadog? That's the last thing that those people are doing. They're humping like dogs in heat! They are dancing the horizontal tango, they're bumping bellies, making humma humma. They're bloody exercising!

How about that? In future use the term "exercising" as a euphemism for making the two backed beast?

I like it! "Senator Y is exercising with a reporter from Fox!"

Griftopia

I just finished reading the well-researched, often profane, and supremely eye-popping book from Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi which he calls "Griftopia".

Wow. Just...wow.

A lot of this book is about stuff that we may have already heard rumors and half-baked reports about. What Taibbi has done is to pull together all those rumors and facts and weeded through them for their underlying morsels of truth. He has taken research and reporting and woven a fact driven account of the intentional and ruthless ripping off of this country over the last twenty to thirty years.

So why should you read this book? I dunno, if you wonder at all about how we got to the crash of '08, or why gas prices keep balooning, even though there is no shortage of supply. What is "speculation" and why is it suddenly responsible for gas price increases? How do "Hedge funds" work and why all of a sudden do they earn so much freaking money? What is this dismantling of the regulatory environment that we keep hearing about, and exactly who is behind it? Sounds mind-numbingly financial and, well, boring doesn't it?

It's not. In fact it's a riveting read. Taibbi manages to get the interviews, pull together the documentation, and interpret the results in a manner that's as easy to read as, well, Rolling Stone. And yet, damn, I can't help but wonder how it is that a reporter for a fan-mag ends up writing about some of the biggest financial and political frauds in the history of the country.

Simple. Taibbi was assigned to follow the '08 election campaigns for the paper. In doing so, he heard and saw things that surprised him and piqued his curiosity as a reporter. Stuff that other, more mainstream colleagues knew, and in some cases, joked about. He decided to investigate further, and Rolling Stone encouraged him in doing so. None of the big outlets that we depend on for our news would dare touch it. They depend on the perpetrators either directly or indirectly for their revenue. Rolling Stone suffers from no such constraints. Again, our much vaunted Fourth Estate has abandoned it's mission of reigning in the more egregious violators in our government and industry.

The truly gut wrenching part of the whole picture is that all Americans should be screaming bloody murder about the crimes that have been, and are still being committed. Our courts should be fully occupied with bringing the people that wrecked the world's economy to justice and returning the stolen trillions(yes, that's trillions!) to the victims. Instead, not only have the criminals been given a free pass and a bailout, but they are still doing the same legalized roulette at the expense of taxpayers. Then they are given tax breaks for doing so.

Pick up a copy of Griftopia. Or go down to your local Library(remember what those are?) and check it out. It's a great read. In fact, it should be required reading for high school kids.

Oh, and here's a link to Taibbi's blog

Uncertainty?

Every time a Republican opens their mouth to talk about the reason business is not hiring, it's the "uncertainty" surrounding federal regulations, taxes, or (dire organ music) Obamacare!


I listened to Michelle Bachmann avoid answering Bob Shieffer's questions on Meet the Press Sunday. One of her long winded expostulations had to do with the "thousands" of business owners she has talked to and their unanimous feeling that it was the uncertainty in the regulatory climate that was preventing them from expanding or hiring.


OK, I can't claim to have discussed the issue with thousands of business owners, but I've talked to a few and I work for one. They have a much simpler take on the situation:

Misplaced priorities

I find myself once again agreeing with P.Z. Myers. Over at his blog Pharyngula, he comments on Joe Biden listing examples of what he considers government waste. While there is unavoidable truth in what Joe says, it only serves to illustrate how messed up this whole debate is. Biden talks about a website the gov't, for whatever reason, has dedicated to the Desert Tortoise. A project which costs the taxpayers a whopping $125 per year. More on that if you're interested here.

With our defense budget larger than all the rest of the developed world combined, Joe is gonna cure the deficit by eliminating a $125 website. We now have two and a half wars going on, military bases 'round the world and the world's largest navy. But do we hear any serious discussion about reducing military spending? Oh sure, they say they are going to stop using so many paper clips at the Pentagon, and the on again off again new engines that nobody, including the Air Force wants for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter are currently off again. (I think.) But nobody is talking about closing down unneeded bases in Europe, or Japan, or the Phillipines, or Korea, or dog knows where else. No one's seriously talking yet about ending our involvement in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Pakistan. Hell, we just decided that Libya was a neat place to waste money, and now I hear we've got troops in Yemen. I just listened to McCain bloviating about the need to back up the poor Syrians as well.

In the words of John Boehner: "We're broke!" If so, where in the treasury is the secret compartment with the money to pay for these excursions?

Obviously, there isn't one. We'll just have to steal it from Social Security, Medicare, and those damned Desert Tortoises.

I don't get it

Even after all the evidence, Climate change deniers are still convinced that there's some conspiracy to either:

a) take away 'Our Freedoms" (this deserves its own post)
and/or
2) make climate scientists/Al Gore rich

I mean WTF? All these scientists busily conspiring on this massive scale to con the world so they can be wealthy? Yeah, right. That's just absurd. And Al Gore is already rich. Sure, wealthy folks can be counted on to try to get more wealthy, but this?

As we (and everyone else) are talking about Weiners

This post from Salon.com really nails it.

"I don't know, call me old-fashioned or crazy or both -- an irrelevant congressman's bizarre behavior in a silly 140-character-limited medium strikes me as a tad less offensive and less worthy of media focus than at number of other less-covered stories that broke at the same time as the Weiner Scandal. I think these 10 stories from this week are far more offensive -- and involve what should be considered more egregious infractions -- than Anthony Weiner's half-naked sexts."

Read more At Salon