"Let's Stay Together" - Al Green
- I pointed this Krugman item out to Roy this afternoon, so gobsmacked was I that Jack Welch's concubine would not only attack Barack Obama, which is par for the course, but also Al Green as somehow un-American and exotic. (Now I am old enough to remember when Let's Stay Together was a huge #1 hit, back in the days when Top 40 radio was eclectic, integrated, and not lacking in artistry.) Who doesn't like Al Green?!! Who is more American than Al Green? Who makes you prouder to be an American?
One is struck by the implicit racism in all this -- Al Green as the other, something less than American. (Krugman links to this Financial Times piece from which this wonderful excerpt is drawn.) It's amazing to what degree these people -- and I love calling them these people -- don't understand how much of American popular culture is black culture.
- On a sadder note, I don't have anything profound to say about the Colorado shootings. It seems to me that we, as a society, decided some time ago that these kinds of massacres were tolerable and we would take no real steps to prevent them from happening in deference to the imagined Second Amendment right of lunatics to be lethally armed with assault weapons and high capacity magazines. I have to say, I am one of those who agreed with the Democratic Party's decision to walk away from gun control. It seemed to be having a really negative effect at the ballot box while not really amounting to anything of substance. I am not really sure what should be done at this point, but it is surely madness to have such a heavily armed society.
[Please consider this and all posts these days to be an invitation for your input on anything that grabs you.]
It's not just that we're an armed society - it's who has the guns, how many, and where. No one needs guns in an urban area. And today, fewer people own guns than ever before in the US - that we know of. At the same time, there are more weapons - some ungodly multiple of known firearms to population, of course, more than ever before. It's ridiculous.
Fast and Furious should put a big spotlight on the stupidity of our gun laws - that the agents themselves and their prosecutors are criminally liable if they fail to make their case on an arrest. Of course they're going to watch and let weak cases walk. I can't believe the Republicans think this is something to make hay over.
But that's Republicans for you - they like to talk about problems, not actually solve them.
Posted by: Crissa | July 20, 2012 at 11:27 PM
Another strange point for the day - a local theater said on the news today they're considering a ban of cosplay at openings as well as checking people's bags.
Of course, neither thing would have anything to do with the massacre.
Posted by: Crissa | July 20, 2012 at 11:42 PM
I have to say, I am one of those who agreed with the Democratic Party's decision to walk away from gun control.
Why? That's a genuine question.
My kid, who was in Vancouver, BC, when he read the news today, told me that when he went to a movie last week, here at home, "Prometheus", in the audience alone, he thought about just such a possibility as he sat in the theater. What have we handed off as acceptable? His Canadian friends believe we're nuts. Me too.
Fuck a very loud duck.
Posted by: nancy | July 20, 2012 at 11:42 PM
nancy,
Going to one too many union meetings where the members seemed to care more about their friggin' guns than their wages.
I think it's nuts too -- I really, really do.
But it just seems like the gun control supporters never vote on the issue, while the gun nuts care only about the issue.
Posted by: Sir Charles | July 20, 2012 at 11:47 PM
http://thismodernworld.com/archives/7175
Posted by: kathy a. | July 20, 2012 at 11:54 PM
kathy,
Excellent. I had forgotten that devastating bit of work by Tom Tomorrow.
Posted by: Sir Charles | July 21, 2012 at 12:03 AM
Jeez, y'all! The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of random innocents. Didn't Thomas Jefferson say something like that? Damned straight, he did! In fact, he said something exactly like that, right up to the word 'of'. After that, ol' TJ's words apparently diverged somewhat, but not in any way that mattered, surely. Freedom isn't free, you know. The good citizens of Aurora paid the price for our freedoms - we should regard them as heroes who died to preserve our precious Second Amendment rights.
(Yes, that's sarcasm from beginning to end. I just can't see what better answer or justification the pro-gun types could come up with, other than being apologetic rather than over-the-top about it. But the message would be the same, I think.)
Posted by: low-tech cyclist | July 21, 2012 at 12:03 AM
SC -
That's true on lots of issues. I know people who are pro some kind of gun control, or pro-choice, or sympathetic to gay rights, who still vote Rep because those issues are, respectively, 48th, 49th, and 50th on their list of concerns. By contrast, opponents of any of these seem to always make them their top priorities.
Posted by: Don K | July 21, 2012 at 12:12 AM
Don,
I think you've nailed it.
Posted by: Sir Charles | July 21, 2012 at 12:37 AM
" No one needs guns in an urban area."
It isn't about needing guns, it's about the right to have them. I don't have any guns and don't have a dog in the gun control hunt, but the argument isn't about whether one needs to possess a gun or whether or not it makes sense to do so, it's about the liberty to do so if one wishes to.
How many people who own two cars really need to own two cars? By owning two cars they add to pollution and to crowding on out traffic routes, among other ills. But they have the liberty to own two cars without hindrance because we are a nation which gives them that choice. Not all nations do.
How many people who have three children needed to have three children? There are many signs that our planet is seriously overcrowded, but we don't tell anyone how many children they can have. China allows only one child.
There may be reasons to place some limitations, and I resigned my life membership in the NRA because they had become too reactionary regarding gun control, but arguing that " No one needs guns in an urban area" is not a road down which I am willing to go.
Posted by: Bill H | July 21, 2012 at 10:24 AM
guns are inherently dangerous items. at what point do we begin talking about the right of people to not get shot all to hell with weapons far more powerful than the founding fathers could ever have envisioned?
every time, it is the "right" of gun owners to buy whatever they want that trumps everybody else's safety interests.
Posted by: kathy a. | July 21, 2012 at 11:06 AM
9th grade: classmate accidentally shot and almost killed his best friend.
college: someone from the dorm was found in the trunk of a car, after she'd been shot. also, there was that sniper shooting at the campus library -- that was exciting.
101 california st.: you can imagine how happy every lawyer in SF was that day, when a nutjob shot up a law office.
columbine. virginia tech.
gabby giffords.
5 years ago: the husband of one of our physicians decided they were not making enough money. he went to the local gun shop. at a beautiful spot in a regional park, he killed his wife, their two sweet daughters, and himself.
it makes absolutely no sense that the rights of the gun owners trump all.
Posted by: kathy a. | July 21, 2012 at 11:20 AM
A family is sleeping in their home when a car crashes through the wall, seriously injuring the father and killing two children. Man fell asleep at the wheel. Blood alcohol content zero.
Ten people killed in freeway accident in Arizona when dust storm cut visibility down to near zero and too many people did not slow down.
Two people killed in a coffee shop when a vehicle plowed into the front of it. Driver's foot slipped off of the brake and onto the gas pedal.
cars are inherently dangerous items. at what point do we begin talking about the right of people to not get run into, run over and killed?
it makes absolutely no sense that the rights of the people driving cars trump all.
Posted by: Bill H | July 21, 2012 at 11:38 AM
i forgot the attempted carjacking, where the thieves pointed a gun at my baby's head. turned out they couldn't drive stick, so they ran away, but that scared me to death.
and the kid who was shot and paralyzed by a stray bullet, while he was taking a piano lesson (where my friend's kid took lessons, too). this made the news, because it happened in a nice area. the same kind of thing happens with alarming frequency in poorer sections of town, where a lot of people pack heat for self-protection, because so many other people have guns for self-protection.
if you look at the situation from a public health and safety standpoint, guns are an enormous problem. and we have done extremely poorly at controlling the dangers to members of the public.
in my opinion, the conversation needs to be about more than the "right" of gun ownership.
Posted by: kathy a. | July 21, 2012 at 11:42 AM
we make people get training, pass tests, obtain a driver's license, and have insurance. we make them register vehicles, and make the vehicles pass smog and safety inspections. we ticket drivers for offenses. we take away their licenses for safety reasons -- for example, DUI, dementia, uncontrolled seizure disorder, vehicular manslaughter. if a model of some vehicle turns out to have safety problems, there are recalls.
i agree that cars can do a lot of damage. there are at least substantial efforts to ensure public safety, though. it is not a subject that begins and ends with property rights.
there are also some significant differences between guns and cars. guns are meant to shoot and kill things; cars are meant for transportation. guns are easily portable and can be concealed; you can see a car coming, usually.
Posted by: kathy a. | July 21, 2012 at 12:01 PM
Bill H - we libruls have been into making cars safer (and giving people MUCH safer alternatives, like mass transit) for only an eon or two. Remember how Ralph Nader got his start?
At any rate, the notion that we shouldn't do anything about X because Y is an even bigger problem is one I reject. While I agree that we've got to have our priorities*, hopefully we can do some multi-tasking. Otherwise we should forget about everything except global warming.
* I think that's part of the reason the left has given up on gun control in recent years: the Bush Administration created or exacerbated so many problems that gun control dropped way, way down into the white noise. It's gone well beyond the initial post-2000 calculation that gun control might have cost us that election. The world in which we had the luxury of time and energy to deal with issues on the level of gun control has been blown away.
Posted by: low-tech cyclist | July 21, 2012 at 01:22 PM
kathy, i was going to post the same link.
Sadly, the NRA has won. Massacres are the price the rest of us has to pay.
Posted by: jeanne marie | July 21, 2012 at 01:30 PM
And, as my hubby pointed out to me when I was marching with the Million Mom March, it's hard to win the argument when your opponent is packing heat.
Posted by: jeanne marie | July 21, 2012 at 01:34 PM
Oh, and three words: self-driving cars. In 20 years, people will look back on the devastation caused by automobile accidents the way people looked back at polio when I was a kid.
I only wish there were some technological fix on the horizon for the problem of gun deaths.
Posted by: low-tech cyclist | July 21, 2012 at 03:08 PM
This is one of those Issues where non-Americans can only shake their heads. Gun deaths in your country are 12 times higher than in mine (per capita). Murders are five times higher. Car deaths are something like twice as high, so, Bill, you are doing something wrong there too. It makes your country seem strange, scary and heartless, even to people like me who love the US in so many ways. James Fallows has been very interesting to read, with the same kind of despair that SC shows.
I am 50 years old and live in my city's inner suburbs, in a diverse area. I have never known anyone who owned a gun of any sort, and I have never heard one fired, or even seen one except holstered on the hip of a police officer. Long may it continue.
Stay safe, people. I wish there seemed to be a way forward for you all on this.
Posted by: Emma | July 21, 2012 at 05:57 PM
l-t-c, not arguing against gun control, note my comment earlier about why I resigned my NRA life membership. I'm just saying that these are not the arguments to make, that one person's right trumps another person's right. I can't have a gun because you fear what some other person might do with a gun, or I can't have a gun because some other person abused the right to own a gun, is not a valid argument. I did not abuse the right to own a gun, so why should I lose that right due to someone else abusing it? Repeat; not arguing against gun control. Do you get that? I am not arguing against gun control. I'm just asking that we make valid arguments for it, not invalid ones. There are plenty of valid arguments.
Emma, if my country seems strange, scary and heartless to you then you are perfectly welcome to stay in your country. If that seems rude to you, it might be because your comment sounded rude to me.
Posted by: Bill H | July 21, 2012 at 06:02 PM
My apologies, Bill. I tried hard not to be rude, but obviously failed. Your comment does not seem rude to me, but I will say that when I travel with my family, we have chosen, of recent years, to go to Europe, rather than the US. Safety and convenience of travel is a big part of this.
Posted by: Emma | July 21, 2012 at 06:18 PM
Emma, I think what many of us in this country miss -- so certainly those outside the U.S. do as well -- is just how much bread is being buttered with all of this lobbying effort. From wiki:
Add then the profits from all those involved in the making, selling and distribution of our national private arsenal. Disclaimer: somewhere in the house is my late father-in-law's 16 gauge shotgun (enough to stun an intruder) as well as a hand-me-down pellet gun, once used to scare off marauding raccoons.
Somehow I got one of LaPierre's 'scare letters' last spring -- I was grossly amazed at the disingenuousness of the thing. So let's all watch Ted Nugent and Wayne LaPierre and Mittens hold hands to defend the *industry* behind their efforts. Bedfellows in the defense of assault weaponry.
Posted by: nancy | July 21, 2012 at 07:17 PM
bill, i would appreciate this discussion not falling into the abyss of "if you don't like it here, stay away" or similar.
i'm a US citizen, and the widespread availability of guns -- including extremely powerful ones -- scares the living shit out of me.
respectfully -- i am asking because i don't understand what you mean -- why is it "invalid" to consider the rights and lives of people affected by guns? isn't that an appropriate topic, if we care to reduce gun deaths and injuries?
you support some kind of gun control, and in the current climate, that means somebody is going to believe their rights as gun owners will be harmed.
the social contract means we have to weigh competing interests, on all kinds of matters.
one of the problems with even talking about ANY limitations on gun ownership is that it *immediately* goes straight to eleventy on the gun-supporter alarm-o-meter. there can be no reasonable discussion of, for example, why it might be bad to have guns in bars, guns in family campgrounds, guns in shopping malls. or, why it might be bad for civilians to be armed with arsenals more powerful than those of the local police force. or whether we should pay more attention to the mental stability of purchasers; and if so, how.
Posted by: kathy a. | July 21, 2012 at 07:28 PM
Emma,
We'd love for you to visit the U.S. There really is a lot of great things. (One of these days I will get down to your neck of the woods too -- although I feel like I will need to minimum of three weeks, which is not always easy to swing.)
And strangely, the level of violence in the U.S. has actually gone down a great deal over the last two decades. In the late eighties I lived in a neighborhood in DC where hearing gun fire occurred a few times a year. (During the height of the crack epidemic here there was basically more than one murder per day by gun in a city with only a little more than 500,000. There were 479 homicides here in 1991. By last year that number had dropped to 108, which although still too high was the lowest number since 1963.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Washington,_D.C.
Even at its worst, crime tended to be highly localized. (I was a young, relatively poor, hipster lawyer when I lived a couple of blocks from an open air drug market.)
The neighborhood where I now live, which is in the upper northwest corner of the city, had just one murder in a two year period if you look at the attached map -- although that was a shocking case of a New York Times reporter being assaulted and robbed in a very nice and sleepy neighborhood nearby. He was hit in the head by a blunt instrument and received incredibly negligent medical care.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:DChomicides.jpg
But by and large DC has gotten much safer and the places where most tourist go are very safe. New York and Boston are considerably safer still.
The gun stuff remains madness.
Bill,
As others have pointed out, with respect to cars, you need a competency test to be licensed, you need to register and insure your car, and you are subject to a great deal of scrutiny in terms of how you operate it. And it is an instrumentality designed to do something other than kill people -- unlike handguns, where that really is the sole purpose for which they are made.
(I also advocate policies that would reduce driving and people's dependence on cars because they are so dangerous and environmentally damaging -- I'm pro mass transit, pro density, and pro mixed use and walkable development.)
I think much more careful licensing should be done only after intensive safety instruction, mandatory registration adopted, a bond posted, and careful background checks done, including mental health checks. I also think assault weapons and high capacity magazines should be banned -- as should the sale of body armor to non-public safety personnel without some sort of justification.
None of this will happen. Nor would it guarantee that this sort of thing didn't happen again. But I am guessing it would help a bit.
There are a couple of hundred million handguns in the U.S. -- there's no putting that genie back in the bottle.
Posted by: Sir Charles | July 21, 2012 at 07:43 PM
Wiggo!
Posted by: scott | July 21, 2012 at 08:47 PM
SC, I've been to the States three times, both coasts and DC. I will come again some day, I hope. I'm an American politics tragic, and have found so much to admire in American history, politics, culture and general dynamism. I resist the knee-jerk anti-Americanism of many of my fellow Australian lefties, because so much of American thought and activism has been so inspiring. On this issue (as on health care), though, as I said, one can only shake one's head.
Posted by: Emma | July 21, 2012 at 09:44 PM
Emma,
Well I hope if you ever get back this way again you will let me know.
Your befuddlement regarding our national attitude towards health care and guns is shared by many of us. I am reminded of an LCD Soundsystem song title -- "New York, I Love You but You're Bringing me Down" -- substitute America and it pretty much captures it for me.
Sadly, I've pretty much spent my whole adult life feeling this way and I am not sure it's going to change in my dotage.
Posted by: Sir Charles | July 21, 2012 at 09:57 PM
Pluses for Australia: Better health care, better safety, a non-doping Tour champion (looking at you, Lance!). Can't sneeze at that. Also, if she wants to come here, she doesn't have to pass a litmus test where she certifies that she loves all of us and everything we do, regardless. Hell, my family are originally hillbillies going back all the way to the 18th century in this country, and there's a lot of shit here that makes me shake my head. If someone from Oz wants to come despite all that, good on her.
Posted by: scott | July 21, 2012 at 10:27 PM
nancy -- interesting stuff about the financial interests behind scenes.
sir charles -- really great point about violent crime dropping dramatically. that's true other places, too. but still, so many guns. such powerful ones. so much hype about people needing guns; so much glorification of firepower in the culture. so many accidents; so many suicides.
bill, i'm circling back around to your argument to LTC -- why should you lose your (hypothetical) gun because someone else abused theirs?
i think this is one of those things where we are looking at a problem from different perspectives, through different lenses. nobody wants their stuff taken away -- or to be blamed -- because someone else was irresponsible.
and on the other hand, nobody wants to be injured or killed because known safety hazards were not reasonably regulated. that's why drivers need to be licensed. it's why doctors need to be licensed, and why prescription drugs are not available over the counter. it's why we aren't allowed to keep personal bombs around, even if we never set one off irresponsibly.
i think you and i probably are not in much disagreement about most points in the last paragraph. or that a family member with serious dementia shouldn't be driving OR have a gun handy. and etc. you seem like a guy with common sense. so, i'm thinking there is common ground to be found.
Posted by: kathy a. | July 21, 2012 at 10:39 PM
Emma, if my country seems strange, scary and heartless to you then you are perfectly welcome to stay in your country. If that seems rude to you, it might be because your comment sounded rude to me.
This comes too close to "America, love it leave it" sentiments as far as I can tell. I last week said I'd no longer insert myself into anything much. It's a free commenting world, obviously. But I hope for good conversation to go forward. So forgive me. Mea culpa.
Bill H, I believe you'd have a more satisfactory experience here (well, maybe not) if you'd spend just a bit of time in archives. Lijit. Upper right. "Emma".
Posted by: nancy | July 21, 2012 at 11:24 PM
Hell, my family are originally hillbillies going back all the way to the 18th century in this country, and there's a lot of shit here that makes me shake my head.
Hey Scott. Me too. Hee haw. Or some such. :-)
Posted by: nancy | July 21, 2012 at 11:42 PM
Where's the part where I even hint that you "can't have a gun" for any reason? Regardless of what you say about having given up your NRA membership, that still doesn't insulate you against the responsibility to not debate the way they do, and turn any suggestion of any gun regulation at all into 'they're coming to take away our guns.'
Yes, you absolutely ARE.When you conflate any gun regulation of any sort with "why should I lose...the right to own a gun" then you are arguing against gun control in any way, shape, or form.
To claim otherwise is disingenuous.
Then please make some. Even before you conflated the very suggestion of controls on guns with taking away people's guns, you introduced the car strawman.In this thread, at least, I would have to say you are not debating in good faith.
Posted by: low-tech cyclist | July 22, 2012 at 06:45 AM
SC and kathy - I think I've pretty much bought into the lead theory (the removal of lead from gasoline and paint back in the mid-1980s) for the drop in violent crime and other problematic behaviors in recent decades.
It seems that other countries have had similar drops in the decades after reducing the amount of lead in their environments.
If the problem had been, say, poor urban blacks with too much time on their hands, we'd be having another epidemic of violent crime now, in the wake of soaring unemployment in that demographic. But we're not.
I've heard that it would cost about $40 bilion nationally to complete the job of removing lead paint from old houses and especially apartment buildings that have lead paint on their walls from the bad old days. It would be money well spent, IMHO.
And it's another of those 'we should do it sometime, so we really should do it now while it's cheap and we really need to put people back to work' things.
And of course, getting rid of leaded gasoline and paint in the first place shows just why we need government regulation, and why libertarianism is a crock.
Posted by: low-tech cyclist | July 22, 2012 at 07:38 AM
I didn’t say “legitimate discussion,” I said we should not “use arguments which are not legitimate,” such as the right to own guns trumping the right to be alive. Rights of individuals are essentially never in conflict, and certainly not those two. The act of killing is in conflict with your right to be alive, but the right to own guns, or knives, or poison is not in conflict with your right to do anything. And no one has, in a broad sense, the right to perform the act of killing, so there is nothing in conflict with people’s right to be alive.
Automobiles cause more deaths in this country than guns do, but no one bemoans the fact that “the right to own cars trumps the right to live.” No one argues for removing the right to own cars, or for reducing it. The argument was made for regulating cars, and I am entirely in favor of regulating guns; licensing, requiring proof of competence before purchase, and a requirement to carry liability insurance.
If reducing death is the objective, then you would argue to remove the right to own and operate automobiles. As has been pointed out, we regulate them rather heavily; require drivers licenses, registration of the vehicles, insurance, laws governing operation of cars, enforcement of those laws… And still we kill more than 30,000 every single year on our highways.
l-t-c; "When you conflate any gun regulation of any sort with "why should I lose...the right to own a gun" then you are arguing against gun control in any way, shape, or form."
I’m not making that conflation, because the statements I’m responding to are ones which say, “People were shot by guns and died. The right to own guns trumps people’s right to life.” And “People are dying, but owning guns is more important than keeping people alive.” What I’m arguing is, “No it does not. That is a non sequitur.”
If somebody writes that they thought that requiring proof of competence would reduce gun deaths, I would respond that I support the idea and hope that it would do so.
No other nation owns as many guns as we do. No other country has as many murders. No other country has as many cars as we do, or as many miles of highway. No other country kills as many people in car crashes as we do. The sum of these facts say a number of things about this country, some of them good and some of them bad.
We are who we are. You don’t like us; you’re welcome to not like us, that’s not my problem. You don’t like me not caring if foreigners don’t like us; that’s not my problem either. I served in uniform and in harm’s way in defense of this country, but I have never had any illusions about who we are. If you think I am of the “love it or leave it” camp, Emma, you have read very little that I have written, because I am a constant critic of this nation’s actions.
And, l-t-c, your form of address is becoming a little hostile. If you want to get into a personal pissing match we can do that, but I think the blog owners prefer we not do that kind of thing. Actually, so would I.
Posted by: Bill H | July 22, 2012 at 12:17 PM
We are who we are. You don’t like us; you’re welcome to not like us, that’s not my problem. You don’t like me not caring if foreigners don’t like us; that’s not my problem either. I served in uniform and in harm’s way in defense of this country, but I have never had any illusions about who we are.
The same thing could have been said about race or gender relations 50 years ago.
The notion that if something's wrong with this country and we want to right it, "you don't like us," is nonsense.
Your military service and your quitting the NRA doesn't change that one iota.
If I didn't like America, I wouldn't live here. As a Christian, I don't feel allegiance (a word derived from 'liege' as in 'liege lord') to the U.S.A.; my Lord is Lord of the universe; not just of this one country.
But I love America, allegiance or no. It's my home in this world, and I care deeply about it. I would like it to be better tomorrow than it is today - and I imagine you do too. You aren't saying 'love it or leave it' but 'if you love it, don't try to change it' is almost as offensive.
I also don't have any illusions about who and what we are. But we're not what we were 20 years ago, and we're not what we will be 20 years hence. We're going to change, period - the only question is, in what ways? It's worth putting some energy into seeing America change in positive ways. This is one way it can do so.
Posted by: low-tech cyclist | July 22, 2012 at 01:05 PM
Emma, kathy and l-tc---I'm sorry you were dumped on and think it was very big of you to handle such rudeness the way you did.
Kathy, I'm so sorry for what you endured at the hands of a car jacker. I cried a little tear when you mentioned the story. It may be significant that you momentarily forgot about it, so I sincerely hope you got the support you needed to mourn your near miss. I know from experience how the fear of violence can linger for years, often hidden beneath layers of bravado and denial.
Emma, you deserve better from commenters. I, for one, certainly hope you don't wander from this blog, but feel comfortable enough to return to the US when you can.
Sir C--FYI, I ran across a list of states with the highest number of gun fatalities. CBS.com ways most were in the south or west, but DC had the highest number per capita! Of course, no state is has a population as small as DC, so the that's a specious ranking. The actual winners in the gun-violence sweepstakes are Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, followed by Alaska and Nevada. I would have to check the numbers, but believe the majority of those deaths are suicides.
As for personal rights vs. the safety of the group, I think l-tc and kathy hit upon the nexus of the conflict. The problem with widespread firepower is only the real possibility of violence -- accidental or intentional -- but the stress related to living with the threat of violence. Once people agree to live in society they, by default, give up some personal rights to the best interest of the group. That's why we have deeds and fences and vaccinations and lines to board a bus. Call it socialism, call it civility, call it whatever you like, it is the way every single developed nation operates. We don't need to compare numbers here on which dangerous activity creates the most havoc. The abolition of havoc and chaos are inherent in any modern social contract.
Thanks to the NRA and its apologists, guns are today's consumer must-have, as if every American home needs a granite countertop, two flat-screened televisions, a Jacuzzi and a couple of Glocks. I think ownership numbers hover around 50% of US households. Compare that to the number of actual hunters and/or hobby target-shooters, and the real reason for building personal arsenals is obvious. It's to have at one's disposal exactly what the gun was built for, in case you want or believe you need the ability to kill someone quickly and easily.
Bill H---I don't think anyone here doubts your love for your country, your intelligence or your good intentions, but catching people in non sequitors is not a discussion. No matter what the issue, you lead with your chin then demand apologies from those brave enough to stand up to your challenge.
If no one else is going to say it, I will. We don't have strict rules here because we're a very civil bunch. Each and every one of us loves this country, has sacrificed for it in our own way, yet also acknowledges its shortcomings.
Until recently, Cogitamus was a safe haven for people to share positive ideas to deal with those issues or just to vent, but when it becomes necessary to cover one's ass in every direction before uttering a single comment, some regulars opt out. We don't do personal pissing matches here and if you force the issue, at least some of us will move on to more hospitable quarters. You can have cogblog all to yourself. Is that what you want?
To paraphrase your own comment and tone, don't bully. Repeat: don't bully.
If SC decides this is my last comment here, so be it. There are discussions and there are trashings. I think this forum has crossed over the line in recent weeks, allowing us to encounter the level of incivility we have often said we wanted to escape.
Posted by: Paula B | July 22, 2012 at 02:24 PM
Sorry for the sloppiness. Here's the middle section without the typos and with a clarification:
FYI, I ran across a list of states with the highest number of gun fatalities. CBS.com says most were in the South or West, but DC had the highest per capita. (Of course, no state has a population as small as DC, so even though the list is ranked per capita, other factors that go with a larger, more complex region make it a specious award,in my humble opinion.) Next in line in the gun-violence sweepstakes are Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, followed by Alaska and Nevada. I would have to check data, but believe the majority of those deaths were suicides.
As for personal rights vs. the safety of the group, I think l-tc and kathy hit upon the nexus of the conflict. The problem with widespread firepower is NOT only the real possibility of violence...
Posted by: Paula B | July 22, 2012 at 02:35 PM
paula, thanks for the kind comments. the attempted carjacking falls down my list, because nobody physically was hurt -- but you hit the nail on the head about the fear of people running around with weapons. i was trying hard to not startle the stupid teenager with the gun as i handed over the keys -- seriously, my biggest fear in the moment was that he might pull the trigger by accident. i'm a big fan of talking people down from stupid actions. that one tested my reserves.
bill -- rather than going down the rabbit hole, can i ask a question a little differently? you are not opposed to gun control. what kinds of measures would you support?
Posted by: kathy a. | July 22, 2012 at 03:45 PM
What does my position that you don't need to be - and consequently, should be licensed, tagged, and trained - carrying a gun in an urban area have to do with your right to have one?
We don't let people have cars on the sidewalk. You're saying because we allow cars on streets we should also let them on sidewalks. It's a stupid, juvenile, and assholish position to take.
Posted by: Crissa | July 22, 2012 at 06:16 PM
And I notice no one even seems to recognize the points I brought up about how many guns are in the US and how few people own them.
Gun owners are playing veto-rights over our day to day lives, and that's not right.
Posted by: Crissa | July 22, 2012 at 06:17 PM
Paula, hear, hear. And Bill, I meant to suggest that you type in "Emma" in the lijit box, not that the comment was 'from' Emma. My shorthand is bad as is too often the case. I used the phrase 'love it or leave it' . Not Emma. Inhospitality, much less pissing match, is not what we do at this blog. As you've experienced thus far.
Circling back to ltc: While I agree that we've got to have our priorities*, hopefully we can do some multi-tasking. Otherwise we should forget about everything except global warming.
'Talk of the Town' at this week's New Yorker . 'The Big Heat' .
Also, re Iead exposure as injurious to physical health -- I knew that (see Bunker Hill Mines Superfund Cleanup , Kellogg, Idaho and its children) but had never thought about the linkage to violent behaviors. Sobering thoughts.
And the good news -- we got spam with a dead link!
Posted by: nancy | July 22, 2012 at 06:41 PM
Paula,
One is allowed to return -- metaphorical -- fire here within reason. I'm not opposed to people defending themselves when the commenting is a little too aggressive.
Again, I would prefer that things not get overly personal and I definitely do not what to have to moderate comments. That's never been what this place is about.
I don't think I've ever deleted a comment here other than spam. (And yes I even deleted our Australian spam.)
I suppose I might have to start, but I am hoping not.
Crissa,
I am in agreement that the militant minority of gun rights fanatics are dictating policy to the rest of us -- and it is much to society's detriment.
Posted by: Sir Charles | July 22, 2012 at 07:01 PM
And I notice no one even seems to recognize the points I brought up about how many guns are in the US and how few people own them. Gun owners are playing veto-rights over our day to day lives, and that's not right.
Crissa, your points are dead on (bad pun intended). I'd just say it's a chicken and egg thing. Our country has a deep history of individual gun ownership and indeed the NRA was formed in response to making sure that soldiers and gun owners could fucking shoot straight.
Now, it's not gun owners that have driven the problem but the changed mission of the bullying and bloated NRA.
My late father-in-law didn't need the NRA for him to decide it was OK to keep his 16 gauge safe in the closet. But the NRA has gone down the 'own an arsenal if you want to, damned straight' road. So here we are, at the end of that road, I'd suggest.
Posted by: nancy | July 22, 2012 at 07:03 PM
The killer's Mayflower Compact family history in case you missed it. What to make of this probably sui generis">http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/07/22/colorado-shooter-james-holmes-family-history-goes-back-to-the-mayflower.html"> American criminal picture?
Posted by: nancy | July 22, 2012 at 08:40 PM
nancy -- when we ask "what went wrong," the answer is not going to be a 10-second sound bite -- although those are already appearing. the answer will be complex. pedigree, notable or indistinguished, is only a piece of the puzzle.
ted kazcinski, the unabomber, was a brilliant man academically; but his severe mental illness led to unspeakable acts. susan smith, who drove her children into a lake, was from what appeared to be an upstanding family; except that she had been badly damaged by years of sexual abuse by her upstanding stepfather. we do not yet know what may be behind the aurora tragedy, but a family traced to the mayflower (and/or a well-educated family) is certainly no guarantee against descendants falling into an abyss.
we don't know what drove this, but we do know that the suspect bought and used a lot of high-power weaponry, body armor, and apparently an intricate booby-trap arrangement in his apartment. we are told he was able to purchase these things -- the weapons, the gas canisters, the 100-round magazines, the bomb supplies, the body armor -- easily.
putting aside why it happened, the apparent ease of obtaining and employing these kinds of supplies is pretty horrifying.
Posted by: kathy a. | July 22, 2012 at 09:33 PM
Kathy--Try this: genius with Aspergers, with no history of treatment or psychiatric intervention. Just a wild guess. Pretty irresponsiblf to even speculate,I know, but also hard not to.
Like you, I agree it's horrifying to think of that stuff being so easy to find and buy. But then it floats around on mail trucks/planes/carts. How can anyone sleep at night knowing he/she has sent that kind of firepower through the mail? And not really knowing who is getting it? It could be a 10 year old.
Posted by: paula b | July 22, 2012 at 10:39 PM
kathy a, paula, I'm not at all speculating. Ted Kazcinski did occur to me. As did any number of people who simply have been able to look around, with weaponry in hand, and view their fellows as mere abstractions in the short order of things. (I'd not include someone like Susan Smith.) Any movement on a shooting range. Target practice. Kill numbers. John Malvo's sick game. Which of course, is terrifying.
Posted by: nancy | July 22, 2012 at 11:43 PM
l-t-c, I have no idea how you arrived at me promoting the concept of 'if you love it, don't try to change it' with respect to this nation. If you have ever looked at my blog, which is linked in my signature, you will see that it consists of almost nothing other than discussion of the ways in which this country is presently falling short of what it should be and once was, and demanding that we do better then we do. I have repeatedly expressed similar ideals in this venue. Saying that this country “seems strange, scary and heartless,” to which I took exception, is not constructive criticism.
As for “catching people in non sequitors is not a discussion” my response is that the non sequitur was not the entirety of my position and in any case it actually is a discussion. Two people made statements that definitively held that the right to posses firearms and the right to life are in opposition and I expressed disagreement with that position and my reasons for that. When a person makes an argument which is does not present proper logic, it is entirely proper discussion to argue the fallacy of the logic.
And in response to the question to what regulation I would support, I've said it in this thread, "I am entirely in favor of regulating guns; licensing, requiring proof of competence before purchase, and a requirement to carry liability insurance."
Posted by: Bill H | July 23, 2012 at 01:41 AM
A lot of these mass shooters are men in their early twenties, an age where mental illnesses often kick in with a vengeance. The availability of things like assault weapons, high capacity magazines, and ammunition via the internet to this population is really disturbing.
(I had two close high school friends go through complete breakdowns as college freshman from which they never recovered -- both ended up wards of the state, considered totally and permanently disabled by the time they were 21. One, who had graduated near the very top of my large high school class and had gone off to one of the most competitive universities in the country, subsequently ended up having brushes with the law, including escaping from custody in a court house by leaping out a window. This guy went from model citizen to sad desperado in a matter of months -- it was a chilling thing to watch unfold.)
Posted by: Sir Charles | July 23, 2012 at 09:37 AM
amazing to what degree these people -- and I love calling them these people -- don't understand how much of American popular culture is black culture.
I can remember reading a somewhat lengthy post of Andrew Sullivan's from a few years back where he noted his early impressions about the USA from shortly after he arrived as a graduate student. The one observation he made that really stuck with me was how unaware the white Americans he saw were of how culturally black they were.
Posted by: oddjob | July 23, 2012 at 09:58 AM
oddjob,
It was amusing growing up in the 70s in a (very) white working class milieu (I did not actually use that word at the time), how many of my basketball loving friends were almost completely defined by black culture, from the sneakers they wore to the music they listened to, to the slang they used on the court. And these were not kids from what one would describe as overly liberal households and at a time when race relations in the Boston area were prickly to say the least.
I think that black culture is so much a part of America's DNA that many whites are not really conscious of at this point, but I think it is fair to say in terms of music (the blues, jazz, rock 'n' roll, Motown, soul, disco, and rap), language, fashion, and popular culture generally, black Americans have had a disproportionately large influence on the culture writ large. I would argue that the broader American culture and black culture are inextricably linked.
After all, what were the Osmonds if not a pale imitation of the Jackson Five?
Posted by: Sir Charles | July 23, 2012 at 11:08 AM
HA! osmonds vs. the jackson five.
Posted by: kathy a. | July 23, 2012 at 12:01 PM
On a completely different topic, I just read piece in the Post about Romney's international side. I hope all the Vietnam Vets who plan to vote for him read it.
Mitt Romney knows a lot about Europe because his family hosted an exchange student from Italy while he was in high school. After college, he got a draft deferral as a “minister of religion or divinity student.” He didn't go to Vietnam. He went to Paris to knock on doors and try to talk people into becoming Mormons, instead.
Words fail.
Posted by: Paula B | July 23, 2012 at 12:22 PM
Don't you know ABBA is much more American than Al Green? :)
Posted by: Eric Wilde | July 23, 2012 at 12:42 PM
what were the Osmonds if not a pale imitation of the Jackson Five?
Not to mention how Pat Boone got his start (via handlers who had him recording covers of song written and first arranged by black singers who got a tiny pittance of the money Boone's recordings got).
Posted by: oddjob | July 23, 2012 at 02:57 PM
Words fail.
It can be very challenging to find modern day conservatives of the Baby Boom generation who actually have any real (not National Guard deferral) personal military service to speak of in their resumes if back in the Vietnam Era they were old enough to serve in the military.
Posted by: oddjob | July 23, 2012 at 03:14 PM
how many of my basketball loving friends were almost completely defined by black culture
I think that's probably still true, and I also think the gobsmacking part is how often they have no awareness of this.
Posted by: oddjob | July 23, 2012 at 03:16 PM
great points about the draft deferrals, paula and oddjob.
while romney was a college student, the war was escalating and they needed bodies. to avoid revoking draft deferments for the privileged, mcnamara came up with this plan called "project 100,000," to boost enlistment -- and supposedly provide job training to underprivileged folks. the plan involved lowering the enlistment standards, so that less capable people could enlist or be drafted. people admitted under that program could not do complicated jobs; they had far higher mortality rates than regular enlistees. the ones who lived did far worse in civilian life after the war; nobody was paying much attention to PTSD until later.
how is it that obama living in indonesia for a time, as a kid, makes him unamerican -- but romney trying to convert the heathen french gives him international knowledge?
Posted by: kathy a. | July 23, 2012 at 04:41 PM
World equity markets sold off and the euro set new two-year lows against the U.S. dollar on Monday after reports that more indebted regions in Spain need financial aid fueled fears that the country may need a bailout....
Posted by: oddjob | July 23, 2012 at 05:41 PM
exactly, kathy! The Marines had a table set up in the hallway outside my classroom at McKinley Tech, where they recruited one black kid after another, that year, with the promise of wearing that gorgeous uniform to the senior prom and reporting for duty at the end of the summer.
I guess I didn't remember there was a clerical deferment, or if I did, I never knew it could be used for marketing one's faith. I could see a clerical deferment if you were a conscientious objector or were feeding and caring for the poor, but not for winning converts (in France, no less, which once was the seat of the papacy!). I don't really care if the faith is Mormon or Catholic or Wiccan, it doesn't seem right, and I wonder if his family might have pulled some strings. Might be worth looking into. Furthermore, unless he was really enrolled in a seminary, I don't see how he could qualify for a deferment. Didn't he go off as a missionary to fulfill requirements for gaining status in the hierarchy of the church? Is that how you described it, RCH?
Then there's the issue that there were a couple of other things going on in the summer of 1968, like the rebuilding of cities that had just been torched, continued civil rights activities, the Peace Corps, and the beginnings of other real humanitarian aid groups. Once again, a deferral for some real service to this or another country might seem a reasonable substitute for military service, but proselytizing to well-off Catholics or the few Protestants hiding out in the hinterlands in a highly advanced and wealthy country? Try to explain that to the kids who rotted in the jungle and rice patties of Southeast Asia, or their survivors.
Posted by: Paula B | July 23, 2012 at 05:45 PM
Mitt, Chickenhawkster still:
In July 1966, he left for a thirty-month stay in France as a Mormon missionary,[18][30] a traditional rite of passage for which his father and many other relatives had volunteered.
From his cleaned up wiki entry:
Romney had missed much of the tumultuous American anti-Vietnam War movement while away and was surprised to learn that his father had turned against the effort during his unsuccessful 1968 presidential campaign.[32] Regarding the military draft, Romney had initially received two 2-S student deferments, then, like most Mormon missionaries, a 4-D ministerial deferment while in France, and then two more student deferments.[28][48] When those ran out, his high number in the December 1969 draft lottery (300) ensured that he would not be selected.
Matching the Cheney record without quite the stress. (Dick was struggling away in school taking six years to get through as an undergrad.) Thirty months in France would have been highly unusual. Missions are of two-year duration. I can find no evidence of extended 'assignments.'
College deferments both prolonged the war and let our lies about class warfare continue to go unaddressed. I remember the vehemence on campuses during those years being as much about ending the war as about hating how unfair and class-based was the deferment system. Shamefully unspoken at the time perhaps, but implicit and agonizing nonetheless.
Mitt and Dick -- I'd like to hear their exchange of the 'war stories that might have been had we not had other priorities.'
Posted by: nancy | July 23, 2012 at 05:49 PM
list of singers i believe are better than al green: [ ]
rank therefore of heads' cover in all cover songs: 1
rank of hot grits on unexpected weapons: 6
short hair or long :
Posted by: big bad wolf | July 23, 2012 at 10:17 PM
bbw,
Nice video! And Soul Train having him sing live instead of lip synching! The Soul Train version of Let's Stay Together was inexplicably a lip synch job. Al Green does not need to lip synch for Christ sake.
I love the Heads version of Take Me to the River. It is so tense and rigid compared to Al Green's but it somehow swings by the end.
When I saw them in '79 it was their encore number and it was quite awesome. Tina and Chris really locked into a groove.
Posted by: Sir Charles | July 23, 2012 at 10:35 PM