Recently (in the post FEDERAL GUN PERMIT) I speculated about how the country might accommodate the entire text of the Second Amendment. Detailing the permitting process, I failed to mention background checks, which would certainly be a part of determining if a candidate were militia-ready—and hence available for gun ownership.
All for naught, of course, because the Supreme Court has already drawn a line through the first half of the amendment.
(The Second Amendment probably made sense at the time it was written, back when the country had no standing army and no state-based National Guards. It's been obsolete for a long time.)
Now President Trump is championing the idea of arming teachers to solve the rampant school-shooting problem. He seems to like the notion very much. Trump imagines that teachers, who universally love their students, would be in a unique position to blast armed ruffians at the first sign of trouble. Cops and school guards, who obviously don't give a damn about the students, run a distant second.
But how would it actually work?
Say you're teaching a biology class, giving your students the benefit of your perspective gained in a twenty-year career in the Marines, time spent gunning down miscreants all around the world. You hear gunfire across the campus. Do you grab your smoke-wagon and hit the hallway—abandoning your beloved charges—to seek out someone to nail (maybe another armed teacher with the same idea)?
Or do you herd your kids into a corner of the classroom where they can't be seen through the window in the door, then stand beside that locked door with your gun out, waiting for the target to come to you?
I think it would be a question of school policy.
One thing is certain, if there's gunfire, that means the shooter is already in the building, getting his grisly work done.
On the shooter's side of the equation, it works like this: Enter a classroom, immediately kill the teacher (who might be armed), then go to town on the kids.
The shooter always get one free classroom to work his vengeful magic. Nobody—not cops nor guards nor armed teachers—can know anything is afoot until the firing starts. Finished in the first classroom, the shooter goes back into the hallway to see how things play out.
Risky? Sure, but what does he care? Nearly all shooters wind up dead, often by their own hand. Remember, they're playing out an endgame scenario. They expect to die, no matter what.
So, armed teachers or not, armed guards or not, police on campus or not, the shooter gets his one free classroom full of kids. And frankly that's going to be enough. He's already made his peace with it.
Result: no change to school shootings.
Trump thinks if would-be shooters knew there were armed teachers inside, they would stay out. More likely, they'd see it as an added bonus. A challenge.
Besides, if that worked, you wouldn't need to have armed teachers, just signs out front of the school saying there were armed teachers inside:
ONE OUT OF FIVE TEACHERS IS PACKING HEAT. YOU FEEL LUCKY, PUNK?
One way to deny shooters their free classroom is to keep doors locked during class. But that would only force the shooter to wait for class changes, which—in middle and high school—occur every hour. Then they could blast the students while they're crowding the hallway. Less spacing, more random wounding. It's a good thing, really.
Or, if he's too pumped up to wait, the shooter could pull the fire alarm—which is what happened in Parkland, Florida.
Clearly, any situation that lets an armed shooter into the building is going to end with a substantial body count. You have to keep those guys outside, and only high walls and checkpoints can do that.
Maybe.
Because shooters with luck on their sides could still probably blast their way inside. Not to mention shooters who pair up with other guys. A breech by a determined force of heavily armed teenagers would be hard to deny.
And even keeping shooters outside the schools is not a complete solution. Snipers can kill kids in the schoolyard or out on the athletic field, or fire through windows into classrooms. To fix this we're talking a whole new generation of schools, built along the lines of super-max prisons.
But that just puts pressure on all the other soft targets where teenagers hang out, like malls and movie theaters.
Sorry, Mr. Trump, but the real solution to shooters is to disarm them ahead of time. Your proposal to strap guns onto teachers has only one redeeming quality (as seen from your point of view): It doesn't require you to discomfort the National Rifle Association in any significant way.
The NRA has the President and most members of Congress under its thumb. It offers the carrot of helping those guys get reelected and the stick of ruining everybody's political careers if they don't cooperate.
But there is a magic bullet that can kill the beast: term limits.
If nobody in the Executive or Legislative Branch was facing reelection, the NRA would hold no power over anybody.
One term, and out. For everybody.
That would put an end to the very concept of "political career." It could also be the salvation of this country.
Democracy means giving the people what they want—not weighing that "opinion" against the wishes of powerful lobbies. If the people in a given district want their representative to vote a certain way, it should be illegal for the guy to vote any other way.
(Another way to eliminate reelection, the superhighway on which the rich and powerful zoom to and fro, is to make the job permanent—like a seat on the Supreme Court. But I suspect this method would just elevate the "old boy network" into outer space, and who needs that?)
Realistically, the idea of term limits is probably a pipe dream. We'd need to fight another revolution and start over with a new country. (Maybe one with no pesky Second Amendment.)
In the meantime, putting a higher age limit on gun buying might help, though disturbed teenagers could still get guns illegally or grab dad's hunting rifle. And anger can outlast any attempt at maturity gained by simply living a few years longer.
I know, it's starting to sound hopeless. But look, even though human beings are inherently dangerous, it doesn't mean we should give up trying to make things safer.
We may still have a little time left before North Korea starts the war that ends all life on this planet.
Monday, February 26, 2018
Thursday, February 22, 2018
IS GOD AN IDIOT?
First, I feel the need to point out if you think you know the answer to this question, you're probably an idiot yourself.
Which is not surprising. Human beings—and I presume you are a member of that tribe—are demonstrably the stupidest and meanest creatures in the universe. As far as we know. And one symptom of this unfortunate (and dangerous) condition is that we think we know things we actually don't.
God is one of those things we think we know.
And to be precise, we don't merely think we know about god, we know we know. Turns out, many of us have such an airtight understanding of god and his sacred requirements, we're busy making plans to go out and kill a bunch of people.
Such an action is, of course, the greatest test of knowledge. And the greatest challenge for the folks around us—our future victims. The more certain you are of your "beliefs," the more bodies you will leave in your wake.
If it turns out there is no god—and therefore no requirement to obliterate our neighbors in punishment for their various sins—we only have to fear those around us who haven't yet got the memo. Which is most of us.
(Note, we still have to fear the folks who just like to kill, god or no god. We're human beings, after all, so it's no problem generating all sorts of plausible reasons to load our guns and sharpen our knives.)
Further complicating the issue is the possibility there is a god, but he's an idiot who just likes to see us mix it up in the streets.
Because in this case, folks may have actual knowledge of a very real god and his twisted wishes. Those humans may be acting properly, given the circumstances, and they'd like you to know there are no hard feelings or anything, but would you please stand still so they can get this over with.
There's no defense against that.
But don't worry. It's very likely the folks who know there's a god also know he's not an idiot. It kind of goes with the territory. These guys know (and they never make mistakes) they're only susceptible to worshiping a proper god—a god who's omnipotent, omniscient, and relentlessly benevolent.
But there's no requirement for a god to have those qualities.
In fact, the history of religion, veering into the zone of mythology, is a minefield of defective entities. Gods use to have very human personalities—and we know how messy that can be.
Somehow, as we migrated to monotheism, we came to expect a better class of supreme being. In our modern age, a multiplicity of gods is not available to round off the edges of a degenerate overlord.
Omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent would be nice, but the actual requirements of a theoretical god are satisfied by a much lower bar.
It used to be said a god was needed to start the universe—a Prime Mover. But that action may not be necessary any longer. A Big Bang might erupt without warning, and without needing someone to flip the switch.
But perhaps we still need a god to create the singularity that gave rise to the Big Bang. It's not clear, but either way there's no guarantee a Prime Mover would survive the Bang to haunt our existence fourteen billion years later.
Could a god come from some other, non-cosmological, source?
Why not? After all, we're just talking about a creature (natural-born or manufactured) who possesses sufficient strength to lord it over us. Such a god could have wandered in from the vastness of space and taken control of our planet. If it happened, it doesn't matter how it came to be. We'd be stuck with the guy.
(Technically, if the being in question has the raw power to do the job, but turns out not to be benevolent, what we have here is not a god at all, but a devil. And if such wandering creatures are abundant in the universe—both the good kind and the bad—our planet could end up a sort of Battlefield of the Gods. Which sounds more like the paganism of the past.)
As to whether we are stuck with an itinerant god (or devil), it becomes a question of what folks need for proof that something is happening. We have to look to our upbringing to discover if a god of whatever qualities exists. But the fact is, you can teach a human child anything—including the opposite of anything. If your parents believed in god, chances are you do, too.
And the god you believe in depends pretty much entirely on where you were born.
In this region, a Christian God. Ten thousand miles away, you'd be a Muslim. Farther over, a Hindu. And so forth.
But this is about the training and beliefs of humans. What about the actual god? Does your god believe in your religion? (Raising the question: Who trained God?)
Don't ask, Did God write the Bible. Rather, Does God believe in the Bible.
From a scientific standpoint, the Book of Genesis is nonsense. But what if your god believes Genesis? What if your god is delusional? What if he thinks he really did create the world in six days?
If he thinks he created Adam and Eve and put them in the Garden of Eden, he might be hard on humanity because of that dust-up with the serpent over the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
If that's true, maybe this guy thinks Jesus of Nazareth fixed the problem with his sacrifice. (As directed by god, apparently, according to John 3:16.)
But in that case, wouldn't life be better by now? Of course, it's hard to compare. Maybe life on this planet—after adjusting for the progress of science and invention—is better since the crucifixion of Christ. Maybe this is the Best of All Possible Worlds. (Okay, that's depressing.)
As I've stated elsewhere, the existence of religion is practically a proof there is no proper god.
A proper god—omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent—would not desire to be worshiped (at least, not by the likes of us). As a consequence, churches would not exist. And there would be no reason to pray for god to act in a proper manner (to heal the sick and injured, or speed souls to heaven), because he would already be on the job. (Not to mention, if a proper god were running things, folks might not need to get sick or injured or dead.)
And seeing how badly humans handle the idea of divine authority, a proper god—wanting to protect us from ourselves—might knock that notion right out of our heads. The fact we can speculate about god's attributes is a telling and ominous sign.
So we can probably reject the idea a proper god exists. That doesn't mean there couldn't be any number of god-like creatures roaming the universe—maybe even a delusional god who happens upon a world and comes to believe the legends he finds there.
That jerk you might have to worship, if only in self defense.
The problem is, the procedure needed to keep him off you back might not be written down anywhere. (Maybe this god showed up after the Bible was written.) Plus, such a warped personality might ignore the rules of his adopted religion. Or be confused by the requirements of multiple religions.
One such hypothetical god may already have come and gone, having wandered away in search of more reliable entertainment—leaving us to operate the defective machinery in vain. You'd be safe from that guy, I suppose, but unprotected from the natural evils of the world. And awaiting heaven without any hope of getting there.
(Heaven could turn out to be an abandoned amusement park in the clouds—deserted, falling apart, and forever lost.)
Still, a credulous god might cause even more problems if he stuck around.
For example, here's how Islam came to be. A man named Mohammad was meditating in a desert cave when a voice commanded him to memorize the words of an angel, words that referred to characters and incidents depicted in the Bible: Adam and Eve, Noah and the Flood, and so forth.
Stuff very unlikely to be true.
So: Was the man mistaken? Was he lying? Was the angel lying? Or, bizarrely, did God lie to the angel for some reason?
Or not lies at all. God may be an idiot who actually believes this stuff.
If the man was mistaken—or lying—a whole lot of people have died for nothing. Similarly, if the New Testament is fiction, same result: a vast number of pointless deaths.
But let's face it: Having a god who believes this crap hardly changes anything. Human critters, being who we are, will always make the worst of any situation.
And do it joyfully. Humans love a good, purpose-driven bloodbath. What's the point of having a religion if it doesn't confer double-o status on its practitioners?
Saving grace: We don't need an idiot god in control of our world, but if we had one, we'd have a better chance of jerking him around, maybe trick the guy into giving us all Lamborghinis or something.
Everybody's looking for an edge, right?
Which is not surprising. Human beings—and I presume you are a member of that tribe—are demonstrably the stupidest and meanest creatures in the universe. As far as we know. And one symptom of this unfortunate (and dangerous) condition is that we think we know things we actually don't.
God is one of those things we think we know.
And to be precise, we don't merely think we know about god, we know we know. Turns out, many of us have such an airtight understanding of god and his sacred requirements, we're busy making plans to go out and kill a bunch of people.
Such an action is, of course, the greatest test of knowledge. And the greatest challenge for the folks around us—our future victims. The more certain you are of your "beliefs," the more bodies you will leave in your wake.
If it turns out there is no god—and therefore no requirement to obliterate our neighbors in punishment for their various sins—we only have to fear those around us who haven't yet got the memo. Which is most of us.
(Note, we still have to fear the folks who just like to kill, god or no god. We're human beings, after all, so it's no problem generating all sorts of plausible reasons to load our guns and sharpen our knives.)
Further complicating the issue is the possibility there is a god, but he's an idiot who just likes to see us mix it up in the streets.
Because in this case, folks may have actual knowledge of a very real god and his twisted wishes. Those humans may be acting properly, given the circumstances, and they'd like you to know there are no hard feelings or anything, but would you please stand still so they can get this over with.
There's no defense against that.
But don't worry. It's very likely the folks who know there's a god also know he's not an idiot. It kind of goes with the territory. These guys know (and they never make mistakes) they're only susceptible to worshiping a proper god—a god who's omnipotent, omniscient, and relentlessly benevolent.
But there's no requirement for a god to have those qualities.
In fact, the history of religion, veering into the zone of mythology, is a minefield of defective entities. Gods use to have very human personalities—and we know how messy that can be.
Somehow, as we migrated to monotheism, we came to expect a better class of supreme being. In our modern age, a multiplicity of gods is not available to round off the edges of a degenerate overlord.
Omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent would be nice, but the actual requirements of a theoretical god are satisfied by a much lower bar.
It used to be said a god was needed to start the universe—a Prime Mover. But that action may not be necessary any longer. A Big Bang might erupt without warning, and without needing someone to flip the switch.
But perhaps we still need a god to create the singularity that gave rise to the Big Bang. It's not clear, but either way there's no guarantee a Prime Mover would survive the Bang to haunt our existence fourteen billion years later.
Could a god come from some other, non-cosmological, source?
Why not? After all, we're just talking about a creature (natural-born or manufactured) who possesses sufficient strength to lord it over us. Such a god could have wandered in from the vastness of space and taken control of our planet. If it happened, it doesn't matter how it came to be. We'd be stuck with the guy.
(Technically, if the being in question has the raw power to do the job, but turns out not to be benevolent, what we have here is not a god at all, but a devil. And if such wandering creatures are abundant in the universe—both the good kind and the bad—our planet could end up a sort of Battlefield of the Gods. Which sounds more like the paganism of the past.)
As to whether we are stuck with an itinerant god (or devil), it becomes a question of what folks need for proof that something is happening. We have to look to our upbringing to discover if a god of whatever qualities exists. But the fact is, you can teach a human child anything—including the opposite of anything. If your parents believed in god, chances are you do, too.
And the god you believe in depends pretty much entirely on where you were born.
In this region, a Christian God. Ten thousand miles away, you'd be a Muslim. Farther over, a Hindu. And so forth.
But this is about the training and beliefs of humans. What about the actual god? Does your god believe in your religion? (Raising the question: Who trained God?)
Don't ask, Did God write the Bible. Rather, Does God believe in the Bible.
From a scientific standpoint, the Book of Genesis is nonsense. But what if your god believes Genesis? What if your god is delusional? What if he thinks he really did create the world in six days?
If he thinks he created Adam and Eve and put them in the Garden of Eden, he might be hard on humanity because of that dust-up with the serpent over the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
If that's true, maybe this guy thinks Jesus of Nazareth fixed the problem with his sacrifice. (As directed by god, apparently, according to John 3:16.)
But in that case, wouldn't life be better by now? Of course, it's hard to compare. Maybe life on this planet—after adjusting for the progress of science and invention—is better since the crucifixion of Christ. Maybe this is the Best of All Possible Worlds. (Okay, that's depressing.)
As I've stated elsewhere, the existence of religion is practically a proof there is no proper god.
A proper god—omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent—would not desire to be worshiped (at least, not by the likes of us). As a consequence, churches would not exist. And there would be no reason to pray for god to act in a proper manner (to heal the sick and injured, or speed souls to heaven), because he would already be on the job. (Not to mention, if a proper god were running things, folks might not need to get sick or injured or dead.)
And seeing how badly humans handle the idea of divine authority, a proper god—wanting to protect us from ourselves—might knock that notion right out of our heads. The fact we can speculate about god's attributes is a telling and ominous sign.
So we can probably reject the idea a proper god exists. That doesn't mean there couldn't be any number of god-like creatures roaming the universe—maybe even a delusional god who happens upon a world and comes to believe the legends he finds there.
That jerk you might have to worship, if only in self defense.
The problem is, the procedure needed to keep him off you back might not be written down anywhere. (Maybe this god showed up after the Bible was written.) Plus, such a warped personality might ignore the rules of his adopted religion. Or be confused by the requirements of multiple religions.
One such hypothetical god may already have come and gone, having wandered away in search of more reliable entertainment—leaving us to operate the defective machinery in vain. You'd be safe from that guy, I suppose, but unprotected from the natural evils of the world. And awaiting heaven without any hope of getting there.
(Heaven could turn out to be an abandoned amusement park in the clouds—deserted, falling apart, and forever lost.)
Still, a credulous god might cause even more problems if he stuck around.
For example, here's how Islam came to be. A man named Mohammad was meditating in a desert cave when a voice commanded him to memorize the words of an angel, words that referred to characters and incidents depicted in the Bible: Adam and Eve, Noah and the Flood, and so forth.
Stuff very unlikely to be true.
So: Was the man mistaken? Was he lying? Was the angel lying? Or, bizarrely, did God lie to the angel for some reason?
Or not lies at all. God may be an idiot who actually believes this stuff.
If the man was mistaken—or lying—a whole lot of people have died for nothing. Similarly, if the New Testament is fiction, same result: a vast number of pointless deaths.
But let's face it: Having a god who believes this crap hardly changes anything. Human critters, being who we are, will always make the worst of any situation.
And do it joyfully. Humans love a good, purpose-driven bloodbath. What's the point of having a religion if it doesn't confer double-o status on its practitioners?
Saving grace: We don't need an idiot god in control of our world, but if we had one, we'd have a better chance of jerking him around, maybe trick the guy into giving us all Lamborghinis or something.
Everybody's looking for an edge, right?
Monday, February 19, 2018
HAS TRUMP MADE A FATAL ERROR?
In his most recent Tweetstorm, President Trump seems to have internalized (and accepted) the idea that Russia hacked (or tried to hack) the 2016 election. And naturally he blames Barack Obama for not doing anything to stop it.
Much as he hates to insinuate Putin had done anything wrong, Trump is even more eager to attack Obama. Trump is the official anti-Obama, after all. Everything Obama did, Trump has pledged to undo.
(Anything Obama can do, Trump can do better!)
Trump also maintains that a blizzard of Russian-based Fake News had no effect on the outcome of the election. (So why bother to do anything to stop it?)
I think he's getting his messages in a twist.
It has been reported Russia broke into the voter databases of a number of states—but apparently didn't change anything. (Maybe it was a dry run for what's coming.) Conclusion: There was no effect on the election—from this action.
But that was only a small part of what Russian operatives did.
Madison Avenue folk often state that half of every advertising dollar is wasted. They just don't know which half.
It's reported Russia spent $1.2 million a month on their disinformation campaign, but Trump wants us to believe all of their money was wasted. Really? There were Republican hotheads demonstrating in the street over some issue or other, orchestrated by a foreign power. And that had no effect on anyone?
(Maybe we should stop having elections, since nothing anybody says or does affects the outcome.)
I remind you that most advertising is not aimed at getting you to change your mind about some product, but to remain loyal to the product you've already chosen.
Also, say a thing often enough, and human critters are designed to think it's true.
("There's no collusion—and everybody knows it!"—DJT)
Putin blames Hillary for inciting demonstrations in Moscow against his regime during the 2014 winter Olympics. As a result, Russia was working to poison minds against Clinton long before Trump entered the race. That doesn't mean the Donald didn't benefit from their effort.
(How many votes for Trump were really votes against Hillary?)
Now we're ramping up to a midterm election, followed in two years by the presidential election of 2020. What Trump needs to do is get deep into the details. He needs to list all the things Obama failed to do in 2016. Because this time Trump is in charge. He's the one responsible for doing what Obama couldn't.
(It should be easy, right?)
Trump needs to come down hard on Putin, starting by implementing the sanctions already authorized by Congress. From now on, each and every instance of fake news from Russia represents a failure of the President to do his job.
And it doesn't even matter if nothing is changed by stopping it!
Those monsters running this country's mainstream media will make it their business to wave every single example of Russian meddling in Trump's face, one after another, until their position is inescapable: The President cannot protect us from foreign bullies.
I think the man might have to nuke Moscow.
Much as he hates to insinuate Putin had done anything wrong, Trump is even more eager to attack Obama. Trump is the official anti-Obama, after all. Everything Obama did, Trump has pledged to undo.
(Anything Obama can do, Trump can do better!)
Trump also maintains that a blizzard of Russian-based Fake News had no effect on the outcome of the election. (So why bother to do anything to stop it?)
I think he's getting his messages in a twist.
It has been reported Russia broke into the voter databases of a number of states—but apparently didn't change anything. (Maybe it was a dry run for what's coming.) Conclusion: There was no effect on the election—from this action.
But that was only a small part of what Russian operatives did.
Madison Avenue folk often state that half of every advertising dollar is wasted. They just don't know which half.
It's reported Russia spent $1.2 million a month on their disinformation campaign, but Trump wants us to believe all of their money was wasted. Really? There were Republican hotheads demonstrating in the street over some issue or other, orchestrated by a foreign power. And that had no effect on anyone?
(Maybe we should stop having elections, since nothing anybody says or does affects the outcome.)
I remind you that most advertising is not aimed at getting you to change your mind about some product, but to remain loyal to the product you've already chosen.
Also, say a thing often enough, and human critters are designed to think it's true.
("There's no collusion—and everybody knows it!"—DJT)
Putin blames Hillary for inciting demonstrations in Moscow against his regime during the 2014 winter Olympics. As a result, Russia was working to poison minds against Clinton long before Trump entered the race. That doesn't mean the Donald didn't benefit from their effort.
(How many votes for Trump were really votes against Hillary?)
Now we're ramping up to a midterm election, followed in two years by the presidential election of 2020. What Trump needs to do is get deep into the details. He needs to list all the things Obama failed to do in 2016. Because this time Trump is in charge. He's the one responsible for doing what Obama couldn't.
(It should be easy, right?)
Trump needs to come down hard on Putin, starting by implementing the sanctions already authorized by Congress. From now on, each and every instance of fake news from Russia represents a failure of the President to do his job.
And it doesn't even matter if nothing is changed by stopping it!
Those monsters running this country's mainstream media will make it their business to wave every single example of Russian meddling in Trump's face, one after another, until their position is inescapable: The President cannot protect us from foreign bullies.
I think the man might have to nuke Moscow.
Friday, February 16, 2018
FEDERAL GUN PERMITS
What makes human beings so dangerous is that they think they know stuff. Mostly, they don't. But they know they do, and they can't be wrong—as far as they know.
For instance, folks think they have a Constitutional right to "bear arms." But they're wrong. That's not what the Second Amendment says.
Most people can't read the entire Second Amendment. I mean, it's one whole sentence long, and folks get all tired and confused hammering away at the first half of it. After a bit, they skip to the second half, which seems to make more sense.
In fact, it makes sense because it says exactly what folks are looking for it to say—that they have the right to bear arms. And it does say that. All you have to do is ignore the first half of the amendment.
And a lot of good ol' boys are more than ready to do that.
Here's what the amendment actually says: "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 third comma would probably be omitted in modern English usage.)
What we have here is a conditional statement. If the first part is not adhered to, the second part does not apply.
It is clear (though not apparently clear enough) that the Second Amendment makes the case that a portion of the population should be sufficiently familiar with common weapons that if it becomes necessary to deploy an ad hoc force to defend the security of the nation there would already exist folks who could be put to use with a minimum of training. (And maybe those excellent individuals could even supply their own hardware.)
In other words, you can keep and bear arms only if you meet the reasonable requirements of a well regulated militia—which would undoubtedly include physical conditioning, stable mental health, and a philosophical willingness to do the job the nation asks of you. (Think National Guard.)
Guys who claim to require guns to fight off the federal government need not apply.
Note, I'm not saying you have to be in a legally sponsored militia to keep and bear arms, just that you qualify to be in one.
How would you know if you've got the right stuff? You'd have to apply for a federal gun permit and get tested: take a physical, undergo mental testing, and submit to an evaluation of your attitude toward this country. (Are you for us or agin' us?)
Flash your newly minted permit at a gun shop (or gun show) and you're cleared to make reasonable purchases. But probably not automatic weapons.
Okay, I can already hear you whining: National Guard folks get automatic weapons, don't they? Yes, and they need to be trained on them if they're going to be an efficient force—but they don't own them. Such weapons are kept in the armory, not at home.
What I've outlined here is just the federal, Second Amendment, path to gun ownership. There may be other paths, of course. Maybe your state could carve out a chunk of law for itself.
It just annoys me when idiots holler about having a Constitutional right to stockpile weapons. They don't, not according to the language of the Second Amendment. Gun nuts need to find new laws to lean on. Either that or amend the Constitution to strip out the offending words.
(The God-given Second Amendment, as President Trump recently called it. These folks are downright mystical about this stuff.)
As long as Republicans rule the Congress, nothing will be done to interpret the Second Amendment according to its actual words. Which is to be expected. The NRA paid a lot for those guys, and they're determined to get value for value.
Besides, defending the Constitution is worth more than any number of school kids.
For instance, folks think they have a Constitutional right to "bear arms." But they're wrong. That's not what the Second Amendment says.
Most people can't read the entire Second Amendment. I mean, it's one whole sentence long, and folks get all tired and confused hammering away at the first half of it. After a bit, they skip to the second half, which seems to make more sense.
In fact, it makes sense because it says exactly what folks are looking for it to say—that they have the right to bear arms. And it does say that. All you have to do is ignore the first half of the amendment.
And a lot of good ol' boys are more than ready to do that.
Here's what the amendment actually says: "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 third comma would probably be omitted in modern English usage.)
What we have here is a conditional statement. If the first part is not adhered to, the second part does not apply.
It is clear (though not apparently clear enough) that the Second Amendment makes the case that a portion of the population should be sufficiently familiar with common weapons that if it becomes necessary to deploy an ad hoc force to defend the security of the nation there would already exist folks who could be put to use with a minimum of training. (And maybe those excellent individuals could even supply their own hardware.)
In other words, you can keep and bear arms only if you meet the reasonable requirements of a well regulated militia—which would undoubtedly include physical conditioning, stable mental health, and a philosophical willingness to do the job the nation asks of you. (Think National Guard.)
Guys who claim to require guns to fight off the federal government need not apply.
Note, I'm not saying you have to be in a legally sponsored militia to keep and bear arms, just that you qualify to be in one.
How would you know if you've got the right stuff? You'd have to apply for a federal gun permit and get tested: take a physical, undergo mental testing, and submit to an evaluation of your attitude toward this country. (Are you for us or agin' us?)
Flash your newly minted permit at a gun shop (or gun show) and you're cleared to make reasonable purchases. But probably not automatic weapons.
Okay, I can already hear you whining: National Guard folks get automatic weapons, don't they? Yes, and they need to be trained on them if they're going to be an efficient force—but they don't own them. Such weapons are kept in the armory, not at home.
What I've outlined here is just the federal, Second Amendment, path to gun ownership. There may be other paths, of course. Maybe your state could carve out a chunk of law for itself.
It just annoys me when idiots holler about having a Constitutional right to stockpile weapons. They don't, not according to the language of the Second Amendment. Gun nuts need to find new laws to lean on. Either that or amend the Constitution to strip out the offending words.
(The God-given Second Amendment, as President Trump recently called it. These folks are downright mystical about this stuff.)
As long as Republicans rule the Congress, nothing will be done to interpret the Second Amendment according to its actual words. Which is to be expected. The NRA paid a lot for those guys, and they're determined to get value for value.
Besides, defending the Constitution is worth more than any number of school kids.
Friday, February 9, 2018
DEALING WITH DEALS
Donald Trump is the world's best deal maker, even if he has to say so himself. I haven't read his book, but based on the man's public personality I would guess a good deal would be one where he benefited greatly and the other guy barely got out of there with his life, if not the shirt on his back.
Trump has criticized deals made by the Obama administration (and others), especially the Iran nuclear deal. He's convinced we should've gotten more out of this one. I don't think he recognizes taking Iran off the path to nuclear weapons (at least temporarily) is a benefit to anyone, let alone to the US.
Currently, the deal in question is about immigration and government funding.
Trump wants to severely limit immigration, at the same time throw a lot of money at the military. And the infrastructure. The Democrats want to protect DACA immigrants from Trump's executive order ending the Obama program.
Trump suggests that if the Democrats don't accede to his wishes it means they hate the military and don't really want to help DACA folks.
It must make sense to the President. He'll give you want you want, but only if you agree to whatever it is he wants. Since a decision can have nothing to do with his demands, your failure to give in can only mean you don't really want what you say you want.
This, of course, is the sort of rhetoric you'd expect from a bully like Trump.
(Another version of this logic involves the guy saying, "Why are you hitting yourself?")
Trump also wants funding for his border wall, though it's hard to seen why he's pestering Congress for that. Shouldn't he just go directly to Mexico?
Anyway, he says the wall is the only thing that can stop murderers from getting into the country and plying their trade on Americans. That's not exactly true. This country has several long coastlines and an unguarded border with Canada. Until we build the Dome, this country is pretty much wide open, Wall or no Wall.
But the way he sees it, anyone not willing to pony up billions for the Wall has got to favor the murder of Americans. The logic is inescapable. Effing Democrats!
Trump's message to those who would threaten a government shutdown: Bring it!
The man says he would love a shutdown, if that's what it takes to get what he wants. And if you don't get everything you want, how can it be a deal worth making?
Maybe it's time for the majority of Republicans and Democrats to pass a funding bill the President doesn't have to like. Acting together, they have the numbers to override his veto.
In fact, maybe it's time to take Trump out of the equation altogether, at least until Robert Mueller can work his magic.
Trump has criticized deals made by the Obama administration (and others), especially the Iran nuclear deal. He's convinced we should've gotten more out of this one. I don't think he recognizes taking Iran off the path to nuclear weapons (at least temporarily) is a benefit to anyone, let alone to the US.
Currently, the deal in question is about immigration and government funding.
Trump wants to severely limit immigration, at the same time throw a lot of money at the military. And the infrastructure. The Democrats want to protect DACA immigrants from Trump's executive order ending the Obama program.
Trump suggests that if the Democrats don't accede to his wishes it means they hate the military and don't really want to help DACA folks.
It must make sense to the President. He'll give you want you want, but only if you agree to whatever it is he wants. Since a decision can have nothing to do with his demands, your failure to give in can only mean you don't really want what you say you want.
This, of course, is the sort of rhetoric you'd expect from a bully like Trump.
(Another version of this logic involves the guy saying, "Why are you hitting yourself?")
Trump also wants funding for his border wall, though it's hard to seen why he's pestering Congress for that. Shouldn't he just go directly to Mexico?
Anyway, he says the wall is the only thing that can stop murderers from getting into the country and plying their trade on Americans. That's not exactly true. This country has several long coastlines and an unguarded border with Canada. Until we build the Dome, this country is pretty much wide open, Wall or no Wall.
But the way he sees it, anyone not willing to pony up billions for the Wall has got to favor the murder of Americans. The logic is inescapable. Effing Democrats!
Trump's message to those who would threaten a government shutdown: Bring it!
The man says he would love a shutdown, if that's what it takes to get what he wants. And if you don't get everything you want, how can it be a deal worth making?
Maybe it's time for the majority of Republicans and Democrats to pass a funding bill the President doesn't have to like. Acting together, they have the numbers to override his veto.
In fact, maybe it's time to take Trump out of the equation altogether, at least until Robert Mueller can work his magic.
Friday, February 2, 2018
I BLAME THE JEWS
It has been reported the Jews came out of exile hauling a Babylonian storm god called Yahweh. They decided it was indelicate to use that name, so they settled on Jehovah.
The Jews then wrote what the Christians now call the Old Testament, and while many Christians hate the Jews (for killing Christ), they greatly revere the sacred book those guys wrote—every word of which Born-again Christians know to be literally true.
Eventually, some Jews decided the biggest problem in life originated in the Book of Genesis—when Adam and Eve defied the Lord by eating fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Causing life to suck ever since.
The solution was to appoint a Messiah to take on this major sin as his own, a sacrifice designed to open up the path to Heaven.
Thus, Christianity was born.
Some time later, a guy named Muhammad had a vision (or a dream) in a cave in Arabia, beginning a process that can be seen as a reboot of Judaism. It was called Islam.
These two upstart religions, Christianity and Islam, have proved enormously destructive over the years, spilling blood in vast quantities.
And it all began with the Jews.
Ironically, I suppose, both these new religions have made trouble for their Jewish progenitors—for various reasons.
The Christians think the Jews killed Jesus, but that's obviously nonsense. Their true crime was inventing the fellow—twice—first as a mythical creature called Christ Jesus (the title means Anointed Savior), then as a fictional character named Jesus of Nazareth.
That second creation was a very effective piece of PR designed to buoy up a religious cult in free fall, its leaders having all been executed by then. And the whole mishegoss was also meant to self-destruct in a matter of months, when the crucified Jesus returned after forty years to preside over the end of the world.
(The destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD was probably the most legible road sign heralding the End. The Gospels of the New Testament directly follow this event.)
For their part, Muslims fight the Jews over the holy city of Jerusalem, after Muhammad allegedly flew there on a magic horse to meet Allah. Also, Muhammad was annoyed the Jews failed to convert to Islam. After all, it's based on the Jewish holy book, with the same cast of outrageous players.
These two new religions also fight one another, of course, in an endless war for domination of the world. Since Islam is the Third Revelation, it naturally expects to win. Moses, Jesus, Muhammad: three guys who received the holy word of God. Surely, the Muslims think, the most recent utterance ought to be given priority.
The same supernatural authority that began with Yahweh (which was somebody else's god) ends with Islam (a word that means submission). Followers of this faith are convinced they own the moral high ground.
It's a baseless notion which has grave consequences in Afghanistan, where America's longest-lasting war rages on.
Our major opponent there, the Taliban, is a contingent of deeply religious Muslims who believe they hold every advantage over the invading non-believers (us). To them, it's unthinkable anyone else could prevail in their own country.
(The war is also proof the West is trying to destroy Islam, which validates al-Qaida's attack on 9/11, the act that brought us to Afghanistan in the first place. Are we just running in circles?)
The American strategy is to kill as many of the Taliban as possible, forcing them to the negotiating table. Unfortunately, killing all of them is not an option.
In fact, killing large numbers of the Taliban will only draw endless replacements out of the ground. The country is a prolific source of Islamic extremists—folks fighting for their own land alongside the most fanatically pious men in the world, all those guys existing in a philosophical environment where being religious is always a good thing. There is simply no practical way to defeat them.
Maybe it's time to stop trying.
The Jews then wrote what the Christians now call the Old Testament, and while many Christians hate the Jews (for killing Christ), they greatly revere the sacred book those guys wrote—every word of which Born-again Christians know to be literally true.
Eventually, some Jews decided the biggest problem in life originated in the Book of Genesis—when Adam and Eve defied the Lord by eating fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Causing life to suck ever since.
The solution was to appoint a Messiah to take on this major sin as his own, a sacrifice designed to open up the path to Heaven.
Thus, Christianity was born.
Some time later, a guy named Muhammad had a vision (or a dream) in a cave in Arabia, beginning a process that can be seen as a reboot of Judaism. It was called Islam.
These two upstart religions, Christianity and Islam, have proved enormously destructive over the years, spilling blood in vast quantities.
And it all began with the Jews.
Ironically, I suppose, both these new religions have made trouble for their Jewish progenitors—for various reasons.
The Christians think the Jews killed Jesus, but that's obviously nonsense. Their true crime was inventing the fellow—twice—first as a mythical creature called Christ Jesus (the title means Anointed Savior), then as a fictional character named Jesus of Nazareth.
That second creation was a very effective piece of PR designed to buoy up a religious cult in free fall, its leaders having all been executed by then. And the whole mishegoss was also meant to self-destruct in a matter of months, when the crucified Jesus returned after forty years to preside over the end of the world.
(The destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD was probably the most legible road sign heralding the End. The Gospels of the New Testament directly follow this event.)
For their part, Muslims fight the Jews over the holy city of Jerusalem, after Muhammad allegedly flew there on a magic horse to meet Allah. Also, Muhammad was annoyed the Jews failed to convert to Islam. After all, it's based on the Jewish holy book, with the same cast of outrageous players.
These two new religions also fight one another, of course, in an endless war for domination of the world. Since Islam is the Third Revelation, it naturally expects to win. Moses, Jesus, Muhammad: three guys who received the holy word of God. Surely, the Muslims think, the most recent utterance ought to be given priority.
The same supernatural authority that began with Yahweh (which was somebody else's god) ends with Islam (a word that means submission). Followers of this faith are convinced they own the moral high ground.
It's a baseless notion which has grave consequences in Afghanistan, where America's longest-lasting war rages on.
Our major opponent there, the Taliban, is a contingent of deeply religious Muslims who believe they hold every advantage over the invading non-believers (us). To them, it's unthinkable anyone else could prevail in their own country.
(The war is also proof the West is trying to destroy Islam, which validates al-Qaida's attack on 9/11, the act that brought us to Afghanistan in the first place. Are we just running in circles?)
The American strategy is to kill as many of the Taliban as possible, forcing them to the negotiating table. Unfortunately, killing all of them is not an option.
In fact, killing large numbers of the Taliban will only draw endless replacements out of the ground. The country is a prolific source of Islamic extremists—folks fighting for their own land alongside the most fanatically pious men in the world, all those guys existing in a philosophical environment where being religious is always a good thing. There is simply no practical way to defeat them.
Maybe it's time to stop trying.
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