On Defending Oneself

The National Rifle Association (NRA) argues that the right to own and bear arms rests upon a more basic right than the Second Amendment and indeed is implied by the Second Amendment to the Constitution. That more basic right is the right to defend oneself. Let us examine that asserted right for its logic and consequences.

Notably the ostensive definition of the word “gun” has changed markedly since the Second Amendment was written. This is one consequence of writing any technology into a document intended to be effective or hundreds of years and it is one reason the process of amendment was made available to change the document as needed.

The word “gun”, meant a single shot muzzle loading device at the time the 2^nd Amendment was written and now can mean an assault rifle like the AR-15 which fires at a rate of 800 rounds per minute. The NRA insists that both the ancient 18^th and the 21^st century weapons are equivalent as far as the 2^nd Amendment is concerned. In an article titled All Guns are not Equal in the University of California Davis Law Journal, which can be found at http://chronicle.com/article/All-Guns-Are-Not-Created-Equal/136805/, it is pointed out that a distinction was made between the light fowling, hunting and vermin-killing guns owned by citizens including the light muskets used by state militias, and the heavy muskets issued by the federal government to counter the heavy muskets of the British army.   I found the above referenced long article exceptionally useful for understanding the context in which the 2^nd Amendment was written and ratified. 

As things now stand, an American can own and bear a machine gun. The effort to reduce the idiocy of such a gun-ridden environment was recently defeated by Republicans using an equally idiotic and non-democratic Senate rule allowing a minority of 1/3 plus 1 vote to defeat a majority nearly twice its size. This is a Senate rule and not a law. It has never been approved by the citizens whom it so frequently harms. Even when used to protect the public wellbeing it remains undemocratic.

But the logic of the right to self-defense and, per its supporters, therefore the Second Amendment, has gone substantially unanalyzed. As it now stands, a person can buy and use for self-defense a machine gun. What if a neighbor acquires, to defend his home against an outbreak of gang violence, a shoulder fired anti-tank weapon, as is used in the suburbs of Damascus? Does that mean I also have the right to acquire such a weapon? If so, what would society look like then? Clearly, leaving the definition of “gun” open ended, as it now is and as the NRA insists it must remain, leads to absurdity, i.e. individual self-defense leads to social chaos. “Gun” must be defined in a way with much less disastrous consequences for humanity. Recently, in China, a man undertook a mass attack on a school including its children. Because he did so with a knife, because gun ownership by citizens is not permitted, there were no fatalities. The logic here is you have a right to defend yourself, but only with stipulated weapons.

The upshot of this type of analysis acknowledges society’s right to impose the rules for human activity if such activity is deleterious to its members’ welfare, but leaves the individual free to defend her/himself.

This kind of analysis, and I am sure the above example can be improved upon, is what is necessary to get beyond the state of affairs that is literally killing us.

There is a correlate to the above observation. We often hear the statement that “The end does not justify the means.” To the contrary, the “end” is the only thing that can justify the “means.” Without the “end” the act or thing that is the “means” is merely an act or thing. As with so much of human discourse, we cover up our inadequacies with verbiage. What is generally the case when the above locution is used is that people were unclear about the “end” that has been asserted. In the above case the “end” is self-defense and the “gun” the “means.” However, we have seen that the means has produced unacceptable consequences. The “end” of self-defense requires a social context; otherwise society becomes an unlimited shooting gallery or a jungle, neither of which is acceptable for the security of human beings. Had we been clear on the “end” we would have specified the means as conditional upon whatever other consequences those means do or may entail. The failure of the founders to do so, despite being aware of the massive changes the Industrial Revolution could produce, does not mean that we should not do so now. This kind of effort should be part of a process of bringing the Constitution into the modern age and also increasing awareness of the need to exercise the precautionary principle.

Bob Newhard

Bigger Than We Thought?

A number of years ago Ralph Nader began telling us that there was no essential difference between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. Indeed, he ran as a third party candidate because of this in 2004. I, I suspect like many other progressives, saw the truth of Nader’s statement as money going from the corporations and wealthy individuals to buy support from either party no matter who won. I now think the issue may go much deeper than that.

What led me to this suspicion is the bizarre behavior of Barack Obama, a supposedly Democratic president. The last straw has been his putting Social Security on the bargaining table for the 2014 budget, not to mention that he did so even before anybody had sat down to that table. He has already cut the rate of Social Security contributions by calling such contributions a payroll tax. In addition to this we now find out that the sequestering of funds, which is the immediate source of this problem, was, according to Bob Woodward, Obama’s suggestion in the first place.

In any event, these actions and many more such as the Wall Street bailout, corporation accommodation in his health bill, and the furtherance of an imperial presidency by his continuing attempt to take over the legislative process, have raised the following possibility.

Suppose the Big Banks, much bigger and more powerful than we mere mortals have been led to believe,(e.g. Goldman Sachs was critical to the failure of the Greek economy) wanted to control, and thereby tailor our democracy to their liking. The major roadblock would be a population desirous to continue long-standing publicly-supported programs such as Social Security and Medicare, both of which represent enormous profits if privatized.  This would be additionally desirable because future corporate growth is looking increasingly flatter as global competition increases.

In view of this scenario, I suggest they have funded two political parties, each with a different mission. The Republican Party would become the party of the obdurate insisting on a return to 19^th century capitalism. It prided itself on sticking to the American way, ranging from the nuclear family to the subordinate role of women to capitalism uber alles. The Democrats from Clinton to Obama would be the good guys willing to compromise with  the uncompromising Republican ideologues no matter how far out their demands might be. This political mechanism has allowed the gradual destruction of social services by government and their transference to the profit driven private sector, as the Democrats “reached out” to an intransigent Republican Party. This process is destroying all the civilizing benefits that saw much of the working class become the middle class, which the Democrats following FDR had fought so hard and bitterly for. The welfare of the majority is being sacrificed to the greed of the wealthy and the process has been essentially a “good cop, bad cop” scenario conducted as politics as usual.

In brief, the American public has, and is, being treated to a kabuki dance  aimed at destroying the welfare of ordinary citizens by transferring increasing amounts of money and power to the wealthy and powerful by the posturing Democrats led by Obama (and now joined by Pelosi) “reaching out” to an adamant, increasingly absurd,  Republican Party. All of this is occurring in the context of the greatest economic inequality since the Gilded Age at the end of the 19^th century.

So, assuming this diagnosis is substantially correct, what is to be done?

First let me deliver myself of my utter disdain for Barack Obama. Here is a person who gave well-disposed Americans every reason to believe they had finally found a president who would put people first. What we got is a gifted orator who put money and the power it generates first and the people last, if at all. We got a high-level, Wall Street shill for whom very wealthy crooks are too big to jail. Obama has purveyed deceptions and legal casuistry to a populace victimized by Wall Street, suffering over ten years of war with no end in sight and the loss of their jobs and homes. He has done more to destroy our Constitutionally guaranteed rights than any president in recent history. He has endorsed continued torture and the violation of the Geneva Treaty. He has taken on the role of an assassin with his drone attacks. He has made a mockery of American decency on the world stage and in doing so promoted the spread of uncivilized behavior among the nations of the world.  In short, he has made the world a more dangerous place for humanity and exacerbated its struggle with the complexities of over population and its consequences. It is clear that neither he, nor the Democratic Party, are disposed to put people first.

In effect, the American people have been politically abandoned and, as Jefferson noted, they have to take matters into their own hands, because their governing institutions have failed them. Let us find an effective, 21^st century, non-violent, way to do so.

Bob Newhard