Memorial Day

Well, we have just passed another Memorial Day and there are some things that need to be said. 

The day went by with all of the usual devotion and honoring of the men and women who have given their lives in service to our country. I have no problem with that. Indeed, there are many who did not give their lives but gave almost everything else. They are veterans who served and came home --- some of them with terrible traumas that haunt them and others with terrible wounds that will affect their lives forever. All of them performed their service through our military organizations and we owe them our praise and our gratitude.

What I do have a problem with --- and it is a very big problem --- is the real-world context in which all of this service was required. Our society has become quite expert at channeling the ways we think. Hence, we spend a great deal of time being devoted to "patriotism" and "heroism" and very little time thinking about the actual mechanics of war. This was impressed upon me quite profoundly about a decade ago when I spent a week in Washington, D.C. I spent the week walking throughout Washington's numerous monuments. Most of them, interestingly enough, are devoted to wars. All of them display patriotic texts of devotion to freedom, liberty, and the like. None of them suggest the dark side of why wars happen. Nor do any of them acknowledge the enormous losses of property and civilian life. Have you ever actually looked at pictures of Europe after the end of World War II?

What it actually comes down to is the fact that governments declare wars and governments conscript their young to serve in their military forces. But who are these governments? Is our own government functioning as we would wish, right now? Are we ready to serve such a dysfunctional government if it comes to that? 

What seems clear is that wealth controls our government --- certainly not "the people" --- so why should the people serve the whims of wealth?

When we think of patriotism, we need to think carefully and clearly about whose interests are really involved in the call to patriotism. There are, of course, the usual slogans of "keeping us free" but what "us" are we really being asked to keep free. More often than not our patriots are dying for the interests of a small minority of billionaires who could actually care less for their "patriots" or the country as a whole. That is the sad truth about war.

In my 77 years, I have know WWII, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the first Iraq War, war in Afganistan, and the Bush Iraq War. Only WWII was a "popular war" in the sense that heroic young people signed up to serve because the freedom of our world had genuinely been threatened by dreadful dictators. The rest have been ideological. Perhaps it is acceptable for people to die in the name of ideologies, but we should definitely check which ideologies are involved first. As we said during the first Iraq War, "if Kuwait 's principal product had been broccoli we would never have gone to war." Why is the whole of the Middle East so "important"? It is oil of course. And what proportion of Americans profit from interests in oil? And in what ways were they connected to the Bush Administration? 

We should put as much attention into researching these questions as we put into praising the heroism of our service personnel. In actuality that is a real way of honoring them.

Rights and Responsibilities

The 2nd Amendment to our Constitution definitively states that citizens have a right to "keep and bear arms." The rationale for this right is, of course, the importance of having an effective militia in case of external threats to the nation. The amendment is unique in its presentation of a rationale, but people are fond of ignoring that, as well as being fond of ignoring the relevance of a militia to the present-day situation of gun ownership. 

What the amendment does not in any way suggest or support is that citizens have a blind right, that is, a right to keep and bear their arms anonymously. Yet that is very much at the heart of the present argument over gun control. When we examine the fate of our several rights, we discover that almost none of them imply a lack of responsibility in the exercise of that right. Freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, and freedom of the press are all moderated by various cases of responsible exercise. You may not intentionally defame a person in the press; and you may not yell, "bomb," in an airplane. People who possess these rights are expected to use them responsibly. 

While we do not have a right to own and drive an automobile (being somewhat ahead in time to the Constitution), I think there are some good analogies to be found here. When I purchase a car, it is registered in my name along with contact information. The car bears definite identification numbers attached to my ownership. When I drive the car, I am expected to have a valid license, demonstrating that I am capable of driving and that I have knowledge of my responsibilities. If the car is used irresponsibly either by me or by another person, I am responsible for damages as the registered owner. 

Now, firearms are also dangerous and can cause damage. I see no reason whatsoever why the owner of a firearm should not take responsibility for its use. And for that matter, training and licensing would be a good thing. 

The 2nd amendment does not provide that keeping and bearing arms is without responsibility for their use!

Do Libertarians Really Want This Stuff?

Where are Libertarians and Right-wing Republicans going with their sustained attacks on the Federal government? Do they really want the consequences of these attacks? Everything the Obama Administration proposes is supposedly an attack on freedom. They want pure freedom! Isn't that actually anarchy? 

Libertarians seem to want a State of Nature where everyone can do whatever they wish. Wonderful as that may sound, political philosophers from Hobbes and Locke onward agree that the State of Nature always leads to a State of War --- and in Hobbes's words to a life that is nasty, brutish, and short. There is no "society" in such a world --- that is, no structure or system of behavior that you can rely on. Perhaps there are family bonds that moderate behavior, but outside of family you are on your own. In such a world you spend so much time guarding your property and yourself that you have little time to enjoy your "freedom" if you want to call it that. 

The foundation of civil society is an agreement to live under rules of behavior and only in that situation are we truly free --- free to enjoy driving safely on a highway, knowing that most people will stop and yield for a red light or a stop sign. I don't have to stay at home with a loaded shotgun to keep people from stealing my computer --- being free to leave the house unguarded. The cost of my freedom is, of course, the rules and how we come by them. Government is that cost. So when Libertarians refuse to pay that cost, we actually lose our freedom rather than gaining it.

What Right-wing Republicans seem to want is no Federal government but, in its place, wildly powerful state governments. The states should decide every matter. But didn't we try that once a couple hundred years ago? And when it comes to enjoying pure freedom is state regulation any more satisfying than Federal regulation? Apparently not, because when it comes to states and women's rights, it would seem that freedom is the last thing on their minds. Frankly, the states are more susceptible to corruption than the Federal government.

I love California and I have lived here for 55 years, but I still consider myself an American --- that is to say, a national citizen. There are definite standards of behavior that I want to expect no matter where I am in this country. I do not want to plan my travel route according to which states I feel comfortable passing through. In fact, if the "red states" have their way, I will probably have to travel through Canada in order to see my friends on the East Coast.

Come on, is all this just ridiculous hatred of having a multi-racial president who is a Democrat, or do you guys really want to go down this hole?

Getting Ahead

Our conservative friends (not that we have very many) are all opposed to social welfare because they view recipients as simply lazy people who prefer free-loading versus making a real living. Many of these people experienced hard times themselves back in the '40s and '50s when they were just starting out and they worked their way out of it. The problem is that you could do that in the '40s and '50s. But today there is a Great Wall that keeps people poor. The conservatives love to believe that America is still a land of opportunity. But they have no understanding of how little opportunity there is for very large numbers of people in America today. 

The cost of living today is staggering and ordinary wages simply have not kept up with it. I can remember moving to Berkeley in order to attend graduate school in the late '50s. I brought with me $300 in savings and my stipend for being a teaching assistant was going to be $3000 per year. I had a Ford which had cost me $150. I rented a nice room with kitchen privileges for $50 a month. My mother had taught me to keep a journal of income and expenses so I can prove that I spent little more than $30 per month on food. Actually, I lived quite well for three years in Berkeley and even got married and supported my wife through the final year. When I took my position as assistant professor at Harvey Mudd College in 1961, my salary was $6200 per year. My wife and I rented small houses in Claremont for between $150 and $350 per month; my wife attended Pomona College; and we began raising two children. A family could live on a single person's income.

Almost none of this is true today. Even a room goes for $900 per month or more. And then there is transportation, fuel, insurance, clothing, food, and entertainment. If a person is making under $20,000 per year, he/she is in poverty, which means that assistance is required just for survival and there is no getting ahead. Repeat: there is no getting ahead. This person is locked into that situation for good. The only way out is to get better employment but how will he/she do that when there is neither time nor money to invest in improvement.

Furthermore, when we look at the distribution of wealth in this country today, what we see is even more staggering. The amount of wealth possessed by the upper 20% is so huge compared to the lower 80% that commerce and employment are affected. The 20% simply cannot spend enough of their wealth to support commerce; and the 80% don't have enough to spend. The American economy is now in a situation that is very close to the economy of France prior to the French Revolution. Profitable business cannot depend upon a middle or lower class that has nothing so it depends only on providing lavish goods for the highest wealth. But that does not go very far toward creating a real economy. 

Unfortunately, the 1% of Americans who possess ridiculous wealth also possess the power of government and prevent any attempt to force them to pay more in revenue. Hence, wealth will not be re-distributed in America for a long time to come, and that means that the American economy is likely to remain stagnant for decades. The whole notion of a "national economy" is essentially meaningless when the distribution of wealth is divided so radically as it is today.

More on Guns in America

Gun-related violence in America is amazingly high compared to other "civilized" nations of the world. Why is that?

It is tempting to say that we need more restrictions on gun possession, but I am really not sure that is a practical answer, unless we want to go all the way and literally disarm Americans and scrap the 2nd Amendment. While I know some people who would like to do that, I don't think that's going to happen. 

In the movie "Bowling for Columbine," Michael Moore noted that Canadians own as many guns as Americans but have far fewer gun-related cases of violence. What's going on? we ask. The answer, I think, is Moore's analysis of violence in all aspects of American life. We are, in fact, a violently competitive society. There are multitudes of ways in which people can act with violence toward one another and simply shooting them with guns is only one of the ways. We can start by humiliating others wherever possible. Our youngsters quickly learn how to bully vulnerable kids, and many adults have never learned to rise above that kind of behavior. Our love of violence is so obviously out there that you can't go to the movies without seeing previews of the latest violent films to be shown. And these are films that offer no redeeming values other than just streaming us through endless violence from beginning to end.

I am afraid that the real reason behind gun-related violence in America is just Americans themselves. They are a violent people and, when a gun is handy in a violent moment, they just shoot their ways through it. This is not going to be solved through background checks or gun-safety instruction or gun-licensing. The only solution is a transformation of the American psyche, and that's probably less likely than getting rid of the 2nd Amendment. There are obviously mental health issues of importance, but American violence way outstrips cases of mental health illnesses. 

Yet, do we have the option, today, of just doing nothing? I think not. Understanding Americans as violent people, we need to try even harder to keep instruments of extreme violence less available. We could start, it seems to me, by requiring gun owners to license their guns and maintain them under the supervision of local law enforcement. An aspect of this in my mind would be that gun owners are required to keep guns under lock-and-key (or with reliable trigger locks) so that unauthorized people cannot access them and the owners themselves have to think a few times before using them in violent ways. If a person wants to have an assault-style weapon under his/her 2nd Amendment right, he/she ought to be assigned to the local National Guard unit for training and the weapon should be housed in the Armory for appropriate Guard use. That seems to be what the 2nd Amendment is all about. The 2nd Amendment is NOT about arming Americans to assault or defend themselves against their own government. It states that a "well regulated militia" is its purpose, and militia's were vital to the newly-declared independent states in fending off the British Army. "Well regulated" means trained and working in the service of the state.

Here We Go Again

Once more, the debt ceiling must be raised or our Federal government will have to grind to a halt. Historically, this has rarely been a big deal. The debt ceiling has been raised as a matter of course. It has only recently become a big deal since the Republican Party decided to use it as a hostage in order to try cutting government programs.

Republicans, especially their Tea Party wing, like to think of debt in terms of "home economics." What's no good for homemakers can't be good for our government. But this piece of reasoning is insane. The government is not the same as a household.

What are the differences? First of all, the government has a flexible income stream (revenue) while a household's income stream is relatively fixed. The government's income comes from within and the household's income comes from without. That is, the government draws income as a variable percentage of the nation's annual gross national product. A household's income is determined by its participation in the world around it, that is, it's contribution to the gross national product. 

Debt is the amount of income which we are obligated to pay out. Debt occurs either because we have promised to pay something to somebody for some purpose or because we have borrowed from somebody in order to spend for some purpose. Borrowing always involves interest on the amount borrowed so that is a further obligation. When debt equals income, we either have to borrow more to cover new expenses (which increases future debt) or increase the income or reduce spending. The debt ceiling is a ban on increasing debt.

The Tea Party would like us to believe that the average American household manages its finances in ways far superior to the Federal Government. But this is a fantasy. The average American household is indebted right up to 100% of its income. That is, every household has made promises to feed and clothe itself, to say nothing of providing cable and cell-phone service, gasoline, insurance, etc. Households have rents or mortgages and indebtedness on loans, credit cards, etc. Households also have obligations to Federal, state, and local governments. By the time all of this is added up, few households possess what is called "disposable income" or income that can be spent on new adventures. Most households are locked into their income streams so borrowing is their only way out. 

The government would normally have far more flexibility than a household. But, for the last twelve years, the government has been held hostage to a ban on increased income (tax revenue). Thus, if the government is simultaneously prevented from borrowing, it is forced to curb spending. That situation might be all right, in some circumstances, but the last four years has seen a large reduction in revenue and a large increased need for spending because of the major recession we have been through. 

A household can lose a major portion of its income when the breadwinner(s) loses employment. When it cannot meet its obligations, the members of the household find themselves homeless. Only the government can reliably provide assistance at this point. But that means increasing government spending in times of need. 

What the Tea Party and other Republicans seem to want is nation fashioned after Les Miserables --- no social conscience, just let people suffer whatever happens to them and guard your own bread. 

Lets Talk about Guns

Well, it always takes a tragedy of some kind for the whole discussion of access to firearms to come up. Too bad, but it has to come up somehow. I will grant that Obama has a lot on his plate, at the moment, but I hope that he will not put off discussion of gun controls for too much longer. Obama is in a strong position. He cannot have another term in office anyway, and whatever he does is not going to hurt another candidate badly in 2016.

The NRA of course is adamantly against any regulation and they own well more than half of the Congress. But dramatic events like the massacre of 20 children in Connecticut may embarrass enough of those Congressmen and women who are otherwise owned by the NRA to allow them to vote for controls. There is the 2nd Amendment, of course, but its meaning needs to be interpreted realistically in terms of the modern concept of "militia" and whether or not modern militias (i.e., the National Guard, etc) require citizens to furnish their own firearms. The answer is obvious, but the Supreme Court may not be ideologically available (at the moment) to understanding that.

Then, of course, there are the truly insane people who just argue that the answer is to arm the teachers. Good grief! Can you imagine the chaos created by school staff and teachers all going for their guns in the event of an attack. How many more fatalities do these people want? There is, indeed, a whole group of people who think the country would be a safer place if we were all "packing heat." I think that's pretty much what the old West was all about and it wasn't really a great formula for civilized society.

Personally, I do not believe that many people want to prevent citizens from owning shotguns and deer rifles so that they can hunt. I have been a hunter myself; and I believe in hunting. Handguns are a little different but I can see some reasons for people owning handguns for hobbies or for self-defense. (Though I must say that shooting a home invader with a handgun or rifle is dangerous because of the weapon's long range. I have always been told that a shotgun is more appropriate, given its relatively short range of effectiveness.) But let's face it. People really do not need to have automatic and assault weapons with large clips of ammunition. Hopefully, we can legislate some controls over these weapons.

Of course, the fact of the matter is that incidents like the most recent massacre in Connecticut are not just about guns. They are also about mental health and how we choose to handle or choose NOT to handle mental health issues. People need to recognize how very dangerous mental health issues can be and, consequently, they need to take them seriously. Unfortunately, the very conservative gun congressmen are also the ones who would like to cut social spending and cripple mental health counseling. What a combination.

Here is an additional idea. Quite consistently with the Second Amendment, we could make the owners of military-style weapons enter their local National Guard units. After all, that's what "justifies" the ownership of these weapons. Of course, from that time onward, the weapons would be housed at the local armories. The new Guard members could visit their weapons and practice with them in the Guard shooting ranges. We could even offer instruction and award marksmanship medals. Result: these weapons are off the street but still ready for Second-Amendment use. Come on guys!