Update: My apologies. This diary is far too long to be any use for starting a discussion, and I realize now I've had too long and frustrating a week to want to even try. I'm going to keep it up, but I won't be checking the comments tonight.
I've spent some time the last few days trying to defend the Second Amendment. Needless to say, it was in discussions inspired by the nightmare in Arizona last weekend. A number of diarists and a huge number of commentators have used the opportunity to lament our current gun control policies as inadequate.
I've also seen a lot of people respond to those and other arguments with discussion of "Mental Health Care", pointing out that a "mentally ill" person shouldn't be able to obtain a gun, regardless. I will mention in passing that I haven't seen one single individual mention that we went through the same round-and-round after the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007. As then, I have reservations about this approach, though obviously I am not advocating that we arm crazy people...
Lastly, it has been mentioned repeatedly, and also repeatedly rebuffed, that the "political climate" is to blame. But since one side is, as always, willing to engage in at least some self-examination, and the other side isn't, that isn't so much identifying the problem as it is going around in circles.
So how should we prioritize these things? I have an idea...Of these three things, there is no one all-encompassing solution, and all of them are important issues to address with progressive action to improve our country and our society. But which is preeminent? Which should we start with? And if it is to be a "three-legged stool" approach, what is the seat that will hold these legs together?
I'd like to discuss priorities. I'd like very much to discuss them calmly. And to start things off, I have some personal experience that might help clarify things a bit. So join me in comments, and let's try to hash some of this out. Because Keith Olbermann said he'd examine his own rhetoric. But Bill O'Reilly just played the victim card. We're supposed to be the side that isn't afraid of a little self-examination. How shall we begin?
First, a personal anecdote for general perspective. Then I'll discuss the limited but real experience I've personally had with all three of the 'response elements' I've described.
Years ago I took a course at the local community college called "Interpersonal Relations". It was a squishy mix of psychology and sociology in a sort of self-help type format, with an almost invisible skeleton of communications skills. Very enjoyable for the entire class, very popular, not terribly difficult; a lot of group discussion and very little "studying". There was something that took me completely by surprise in one of the exercises.
The exercise was simple enough; in small groups of 4 or 5, we read a story, discussed and answered some questions, and then each group reported to the class on our results and we had more discussion. The story was about a woman who was having an affair, and to avoid getting caught she had to take a ferry, and while on the boat she is murdered by an insane person. We are told that the woman's husband is violently jealous, and would have killed her if she'd been caught, and that she could have avoided the ferry if a stranger had lent her a trivial amount of money for a private boat. The questions were, essentially, asking us to identify fault. Who is responsible for the woman's death?
What surprised me, in fact shocked me, so much are the responses that the majority, in fact practically the entire class, gave to these questions. Granted, I will admit, this was an easy-pass community college course; the attendees were not noticeably intellectual or well versed in philosophy or ethics. But still...
When asked simply "who is to blame?" most people said 'the woman'. I suppose a lot of that might be accounted for simply by the standard gender issues, but frankly that always surprises me, too. I may be mistaken, but I've never noticed any inclination on my own part to shift my accounting of responsibility based on gender, and I can't ever seem to expect it (or accept it) in others, regardless of how many times I'm told it happens. The reason these people blamed the victim that they provided was, of course, not gender, but rather that she was engaged in an illicit act by pursuing an affair. A number of people also or alternatively blamed the husband, because he failed to "satisfy" his wife and because of the threat of violence which drove her to use the ferry. Some even blamed the stranger, because, the reasoning went, if had lent the trivial sum, the woman would not have been on the ferry and would not have been killed. The lover was fingered by a few people as well. If I remember correctly, there were exactly two students (aside from myself and my brother, who was taking the same class) who actually blamed the murderer for the murder. So ingrained in our thinking that the insane are not "responsible" for their actions, I don't believe an instruction was even necessary to steer people away from accurately identifying the fault. Since someone is dead, someone must be responsible for it, and since the killer was insane, it must have been someone else. Since he can't be found legally guilty of a crime, the perpetrator has no fault, the 'reasoning' goes, and so there must be some fault elsewhere.
There is no limit to the "chain of hypothetical causation" that one can draw in finding the person one has the most animus towards and fingering them as culpable for an act they didn't even witness. Apparently, to these people, ethical responsibility does not require awareness, let alone intent.
This exercise was obviously extremely informative. It was also deeply disturbing, not only because of the responses from the other students but because the coursework and the instructor (which and whom I otherwise respect) didn't end the exercise with the "correct" answer! The point was supposed to be simply to recognize that there were differing opinions, that who you feel deserves blame is dependent on perspective and is subjective. Leaving, I fear, almost every person in the class with the belief that their choices were "right" and all the others were "just" a different perspective. {*Shudder*} Here ends the anecdote.
My father was a Republican, but was not a "gun nut", and in fact was only slightly right of center to begin with. But he did, I believe, consider it his patriotic duty to teach his son how to handle firearms. He owned several guns, including an old military-issue .45 automatic. He took me out target shooting a couple times when I was a kid (at first I was only allowed to use the .22 revolver.)
In my teen years, I actually had occasion to use those lessons, and that .45, to try defend our house and family against a crazy drunk (one of my sister's boyfriends) on a rampage. It didn't end the way I thought it would, but I didn't shoot anyone, either. My intent had been to use the gun as a deterrent, but the guy was too drunk to be deterred, and then the crazy took over. Given modern "castle laws", I might have been justified even if I killed him, but he didn't actually pose sufficient threat to health or property for me to want to hurt him, just scare him. He was too crazy to be scared, and the incident ended successfully (in that he no longer posed a threat) but messily. In fact he sued a friend of mine who had bashed his teeth in with a coffee cup while I was trying to subdue him. I testified against my friend in small claims court, and he was ordered to pay for the guy's dental work.
My mother worked for the County agency responsible for what is now called "Behavioral Health". At the time it was called "Mental Health/Mental Retardation". Her job was to go out to investigate when somebody wanted to have someone committed. This was before Reagan made involuntary commitment (without criminal prosecution) too expensive for the County or State to afford. So almost every day, people would call the police or a hospital or the County and say, essentially, "This person is crazy, please come take them away." She would have to go out there and evaluate them as best she could, and make a decision whether to have the person "taken away". Of course, this was provisional: they could only be held up to three days until a psychiatrist could make a medical diagnosis, and then someone (else) with the County would decide whether they would be, for all intents and purposes, incarcerated in a State Hospital. Shades of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest...
Ironically, my mother lost her job after she had a psychotic break due to untreated bipolar disorder. This was before the Americans with Disabilities Act, so even after she recovered and got treatment, they would not let her keep her job.
Finally, to complete the trifecta, let's consider the "political climate". Here I am, one of the few Kossacks who:
* opposed filibuster reform
* defends the Second Amendment
* considered what PFC Manning did to be, literally, treason
* promotes Gnu Atheist realism, while simultaneously defending the (metaphoric) truth and (philosophical) beauty of the "Seven Days/Garden of Eden" creation myths.
Which is to say I've had reason to enjoy the freedom to engage in politically unpopular speech and opinions. Obviously most of these positions (and the dozens more where I swim against the tide, for I heartily follow the advice of the great sage Samuel Clemens when he said, "Whenever I find more than half the people share my opinion, I change it.") Some have called me an instigator, some will swear I'm a troll, and I've made no secret of the fact that being provocative and engaging in potentially heated argument is part of what makes Daily Kos attractive to me. I will, quickly, harshly, and gleefully, insult with no reservations whatsoever, anyone who even once questions whether I am a "true progressive". I'm way more progressive than most everyone here, though I'm not an idealistic Birkenstock-wearing liberal progressive. I'm one of them there pragmatic progressives, and I'm not at all naive about the danger that, as the right likes to put it, "central planning" can pose to our country. I'm very patriotic about this country, I'm proud to have served in Reagan's Navy during the Cold War, although I'm not proud of Reagan or the Cold War.
Since I can't do anything about the fact that it happened, I'm kind of proud of America's slave-owning, genocidal origin. Because we stopped. And that version of American Exceptionalism is one I won't let anyone talk me out of. As my personal hero, (speaking of swimming against the tide) President Barrack Obama puts it, "We will never be perfect, but we can always be perfected," using a rhetorical turn that is unfamiliar to most, but expresses the thought nevertheless.
My point is that I have been accused of being "a Fox viewer" often enough, which I, unlike a Fox viewer, consider a heinous and despicable slur, that I question the conventional wisdom that anyone who considers themselves progressive is inherently correct and anyone who calls themselves conservative is inherently incorrect. So correcting the "political climate" or "civil discourse" or "partisan rhetoric" is not, I'm afraid, as simple as protesting that it is actually the Right using most of the violent anti-government eliminationist speech. It is true, but unfortunately it isn't helpful.
Now, enough rambling about my opinions. My point here is to invite comments and discussion. Those who've visited my diaries before know that I'm not the type to say "I don't have answers, I just have questions." I think that's passive aggressive crapola. I have answers: it is your job to agree or disagree.
Q. What should be our priority in battling violent domestic extremism such as political assassinations; gun control, behavioral health, or political climate?
A. None of the above. Re-establish a progressive tax base, and the super-rich will no longer have any success inciting the desperate into acts of violence, no matter how well they fund lies about how the government is being "taken over". Nobody pays attention to rich people complaining about how high their taxes are unless they are convinced their taxes are too high as well. That's part of the importance of a progressive tax policy. We need the top brackets rate to be high enough that the middle class think they're getting a good deal, no matter what their own rate is. Further, the funds will enable establishment of a more peaceful, more just society, where issues like violence, injustice, and poverty are far less common then they are today.
But I'll point out that, although we address ourselves to the important exceptions, America today is a peaceful, just society, more so than not, and more so than before. Not perfect, but perfected. Violence exists, and so it is a problem, but it is not, for the huge majority of citizens, a personal one. Injustice exists, and we know so because we are constantly rooting it out, exposing it to the light of day, and engaging in efforts to prevent it. Poverty is an ongoing plague, but it has been said that will always be so; it is certainly a problem best attacked indirectly, providing opportunities rather than handouts.
So I'm not a fan of trying to prevent incidents like Tuscon by dialing back Second Amendment rights in general. I've never opposed any locality or property owner from restricting gun rights within their jurisdiction, though it does need to pass some legal test in the case of a local government. Historically it is true that the Wild West was "civilized" by local ordinance, not by the "Mexican Standoff" of deterrence. But I believe there is a legal path that allows peace of mind without total disarmament. The current Supreme Court has made this a vital necessity. But I don't believe it has all that much to do with what happened last weekend.
As far as advocating that the Government take a more active role in identifying which individual citizens are "mentally defective" enough to be deprived of their rights, I'm skeptical. A lot of people think of warrantless wiretapping and "enhanced interrogation" as the advent of Big Brother. I don't think we need or should have either of those things, but they don't actually scare me the way they seem to scare some people, especially around here. What does scare me is the casual acceptance of the idea that identifying someone as 'mentally unstable' is a simple and precise medical determination, and the linking of that to the even more horrifying idea that the Federal government should pass judgment on such a thing and link it to limiting Constitutional rights. It isn't as easy to tell the disturbed from the disturbing as people like to believe. It all seems obvious and easy with 20/20 hindsight. But have you ever seen that Tom Cruise movie with the multi-touch wall displays, Minority Report? I think it's relevant here as an illuminating metaphor, as speculative fiction often is.
And so we get to the other tough nut, the Media, and/or the "political climate". This isn't a thing which is concrete enough to be directly effected. The best we can do is resolve to be better (somehow both more honest and less confrontational) as individuals, and hope to notice that the line given by conventional wisdom starts bending towards the more rational. Directly confronting teabaggers and Republicans as "liars", as true as it may be in many cases, simply does not work. It's wrestling a pig; it makes you look stupid and annoys the pig. I'm all for annoying them, but looking stupid is what loses elections. My point is that self-righteousness only works, politically, when you're wrong. We can lament that, but we can't change it. For the moment, the Republicans have the field to themselves, and I don't think it is worth being wrong just so we can compete in self-righteousness. When you are right, your only option is to be self-assured, rather than self-righteous. An abstract distinction, I'll admit, but I'll insist an important one, nonetheless.
Outlawing Fox News isn't possible, the idea that "fact" and "opinion" are easily distinguishable things is a delusion, politically correct restrictions on verbiage is nothing but authoritarianism in disguise. The political environment is more like the weather than the climate; you can bitch about it, but you can't do anything about it. Yes, we need public campaign financing, but the more we need it the less likely we can get it, for what should be obvious reasons. I think we should try, certainly, but we should do that regardless, not in reaction to what happened last weekend (for instance, with an eye towards changing gun control, mental health, or even tax policies).
So there's my take. What should be our response to the tragedy? Commemorate the victims, prosecute the perpetrator, and restore a just tax policy. Focusing on the basics of politics is the only truly worthwhile response. Reactionary insistence on "fixing" some particular thing or exasperated claims that America is an "insane society" are not any use to anybody.