Rigidity of the Law

A nineteen-year-old boy has sex with a fourteen-year-old girl.  It seems clear in such a case that the boy should go to jail, since he has committed statutory rape.  The girl isn't legally old enough in almost any state to give consent, and the boy should have known better.

But what if it was physically impossible for him to know better?

Case in point: this story.

tl;dr: the girl lied about her age, and admitted to police she lied about her age.  In court, she and her mother both stood up before the court and confessed about what she had done and pled for the boy not to be given a harsh sentence.  The boy didn't know her before hooking up with her, and thus had no way of knowing she was lying. 

Maybe you feel like it was still wrong of him, based on beliefs about sex before marriage or a perception of society's "hook up culture" - but those two things are legal and people have the right to have sex with whomever they want so long as both parties consent.  It's not justice to take out your belief against premarital sex on anyone (and if you truly believe it's wrong, you also likely believe that God will sort it out after death).  Barring such a belief, the only question is one of whether it's the responsibility of both parties to verify each other's age - and, for anyone under 18, people are not required to carry ID, which can make such verification impossible

But let's assume you can twist it around in your brain to the point where you still feel you must convict the boy and punish him for the act.  What is right?

For the sake of determining what's appropriate, let's assume for a moment he knew her age and acted anyway.  Then the question of punishment should be one of recidivism - that is, will he do it again?  If he is a child predator, with a history of attempting to engage in sexual activity with underage girls, then it's entirely appropriate to give him a long prison sentence.  (I disapprove of sex offender registries in general, but that's another argument.)  But, if he's a first offender who simply made a bad judgment call, and punishment can be expected to encourage him to make better judgment calls in the future, then a short sentence is appropriate. 

And not long ago, judges had the authority to make such calls. 

An editorial in The Independent, out of the UK, explains the problem as it transpired there.  It is similar to what happened in the states.

it was hypersensitivity to the outrage [early release murder cases] caused that led Labour to coin its most effective catchphrase ever: "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime", promising ... to take the civilising steps that would discourage the young and poor from setting off down the wrong road, while vowing that it would also come down brutally hard on offenders.

Successive hardline home secretaries cleaved fiercely to the pledge to be tough, and as a result the discretion that judges had long enjoyed to discriminate between cold-blooded, premeditated murder, murder caused when the intention was only to warn or to wound, and murder committed in the heat of passion or at the wish and request of the "victim", was abolished. All were "murder", all were equally iniquitous crimes, and all would be punished by the same tariff: life.

This, it was decided, was the most effective way to stop the right-wing press from pouncing at regular intervals. But the resulting rigidity reduced the judge to a robot, and cast a blanket of moral uniformity over actions that ranged from the unspeakably vile to the merciful.

The problem is, we decided we needed to be tough on crime, and somewhere in the process, we reduced the ability of judges to actually judge anything.  In many cases, as the editorial describes, we make judges simple robots who merely assign the preordained punishment to the crime.  In other cases, though, thanks to our system of electing judges and this belief that judges must be tough on crime, we choose judges who will be over-the-top and make decisions that are based solely within a narrow definition of morality that happens to fit the minority of people who turned out to vote on election day.  We don't choose judges on their ability to make wise decisions, but rather on their ability take someone the rest of us would let walk free, look him in the eye, and say "f#%! your life, I have a political agenda to make."

And it further doesn't help that so many of us have this "the law is the law" belief that was expressed to me in argument on Facebook that this boy should be punished as harshly as he is.  When you say "the law is the law," you're really making a claim about how perfect the law is.  You're making a claim that, even though it was written by human beings (notably flawed) in a written language (notably plagued by interpretation issues), and even though it is extremely narrow in its scope and the possibility of human interaction is always necessarily wider in scope, that it is perfect and should never be questioned. 


That was originally what judges were for - to interpret the law, and make decisions about whether it's appropriate to apply it in certain situations.  But, we believed they were too loose with it, so we took that power away from them, or found other judges who more fit our narrow beliefs.  That was originally what juries were for, to decide not only whether a person was guilty of breaking a law, but whether it was even right to apply that law to their case (jury nullification is a thing, but no one ever talks about it). 

When the law is rigid, it is always unjust. 

Unplanned

The last couple of weeks, there's been a big story in the media about Planned Parenthood and attempts to sell the remains of unborn fetuses to science.  I have no interest in debating whether that's true or not, or whether it's right for aborted human zygotes to be sold. I would instead like to talk about why right-wing groups consistently try to find problems within the organization as part of their attempts to defund it.

I've talked previously about how within Fundamentalist Christianity, we were taught to see the world in "us vs them" terms, that we were having to wage war for our very souls.  We were also taught that abortion was evil - that life began at conception and that abortion was therefore murder.  Their key passages to prove this are:

For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb. (Psalms 139:13, NIV)

"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you..."  (Jeremiah 1:5a, NIV)

As with the creation of the Heavens and the Earth, Fundamentalists see the creative acts ascribed to God in the Bible as being entirely dependent upon Him - ergo, every child is literally a miracle of God, rather than something that would happen anyway.  This act of creation is instantaneous rather than a process - the initial cell combination of sperm and egg is God's Will, and it cannot spark the engine that will churn out a human being without God's Will.  God knew He would create such a child before the child's conception, which means that the child is part of God's plan. 

There is a final passage, though, that requires a bit of willing self-deception to accept.  Allow me to digress a moment...

See, so far, we haven't got a living human being in the womb, just something that is knit together.  Carrie Gordon Earll, in a post as part of Focus on the Family's "Abortion Series," gives us this passage:

"'If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows. But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise' (Exodus 21:22-25, NIV)"

She uses this as proof that humans are not "allowed to take life before birth."  The idea hinges upon the idea that she is giving birth to a living, breathing child, which is why the passage says "gives birth prematurely."  The second sentence, then, appears to mean that the fetus is not delivered successfully, and that fetus's life is equal to the life of the man who caused the accident, ergo the man should be put to death as well. 

Earll jumps around between versions in her article, quoting:

• the New American Standard Version 6 times;
• the New International Version 6 times;
• the New King James Version 5 times;
• the Phillips New Testament in Modern English 1 time;
• the Revised Standard Version 1 time;
• the King James Version 1 time.

If she had access to these other translations, she might see Exodus 21:22 translated as follows:

"When men strive together, and hurt a woman with child, so that there is a miscarriage, and yet no harm follows, the one who hurt her shall be fined, according as the woman’s husband shall lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine." (RSV)

If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. (KJV)

In fact, this idea of "miscarriage" instead of "birth" occurs in the Common English Bible, The Message Bible, and the New Revised Standard. 

Greg Koukl does a great job breaking down the meaning behind the original Hebrew words, and why they might be translated as birth or miscarriage.  Unfortunately, he makes a leap in logic that isn't supported - namely, that Moses chose a word that means live birth.  By Koukl's own admission, though, it doesn't:

The verb yasa is a primary, primitive root that means "to go or come out." 

There is only one time yasa is clearly used for a dead child. Numbers 12:12 says, "Oh, do not let her be like one dead, whose flesh is half eaten away when he comes from his mother's womb!"

He says that the frequency of the word's use to describe live birth, and its infrequency as anything else, means that it must be a living child delivered in this passage; however, he just said it means "to go or come out".  That is, when a woman gives birth, it doesn't matter whether the child has a pulse or not, whether it's a stillbirth or not, for the purposes of the word "birth."  We often assume it means that the child is alive, but that is not necessary to the word.  In the Hebrew language, it's the same way, just as the KJV translates it into simply "depart from her."

If Earll encountered such a definition (and it is in the RSV and the KJV that she quotes), then she is being intellectually dishonest by hiding that possibility from her readers.

If we read the passage as "delivered" rather than birth or even miscarriage, then we discover that the passage doesn't care one whit for the life of the child - the injury is to the mother, who may very well die from an injury serious enough to cause her to deliver early.  Thus, "life for life" refers to her life, not her child's.

If we disregard that, then we can accept that the death of the fetus is equivalent to the life of a man, and we can infer from that that means the child is covered by the same "thou shalt not murder" law that covers other human beings.  Then, finally we have a "proof" that abortion is murder.

Back to the main thread...

Because abortion is murder in the minds of Fundamentalists, it serves therefore that those who execute abortions (doctors and women who terminate pregnancies) are murderers, and organizations that facilitate this interaction are accomplices to murder.

And, since abortion is legal, and murderers and accomplices cannot be tried in court, this simply frustrates the Fundamentalists even more, which is how we end up with vigilantes bombing abortion clinics in the hopes of stopping abortions from happening.  In the mind of such a vigilante, murder demands a death sentence for the murderers, and since the law won't do it, it's up to vigilantes to do so.

In the church, we publicly condemned such actions, but we did so with a side of "but they earned it," because we honestly believed they did.

So the thinking goes: Planned Parenthood, as an organization that facilitates abortions, then, is an accomplice to murder.  Rather than bombing it, the only thing left to do is attempt to defund it.  If we defund it enough, then perhaps abortions will stop occurring there.  Their other services aren't bad, but their abortions must be stopped.  Nevermind that federal money can't be used to pay for abortions, and thus defunding the organization means only taking money from their other beneficial programs, because we had to do SOMETHING.

Obviously, I felt the same way at one point in my life.  Planned Parenthood was the poster child for abortion clinics. As a 20-year-old IT worker for a local IT company, I was given the task to go to a Planned Parenthood office to fix several computers.  (Interestingly, no part of me said I should be a conscientious objector to that - we didn't think about rejecting work just because our client did something we didn't agree with.)  I felt like I was walking into the gates of Hell.  I tried not to make contact with the women sitting in the waiting room of the office, who I imagined were all there because they wanted to have abortions, and I judged them for it.  I thought I might accidentally wander into some doctor's office where an abortion was actually being performed (nevermind that Planned Parenthood doesn't do that in Oklahoma - my level of education about the organization was limited at best). 

My experience was somewhat different from what I expected.

While I did see some information about abortion - one small pamphlet on the subject, if I recall correctly - everything else was about mostly unrelated activities, such as breast exams and other women's health issues.  There were several resources about adoption, and contraception information was probably the thing I saw most.

And the employees weren't hateful people hell-bent on killing babies; instead, they were people who were just trying to help others as best they could.

It was an eye-opening experience, but the ways in which it was were unexpected and unplanned.

It would be another 7 years before I started becoming a liberal, but that would be the last time I badmouthed Planned Parenthood.  Perhaps a field trip should be a requirement for everyone.

Sharia don't like it

The latest "ZOMG SHARIA LAW" post I saw on Facebook is that the mayor of Seattle is introducing Sharia Law (compliant home-loans). I mention that last part in parentheses because it's never the headline of the story and it's always clear that the people responding to it have either not read it or not understood it. 

It's illegal to pay interest in the Muslim faith, and there are some organizations- some of them governmental - that help with this problem, as it's pretty much completely impossible to buy a house, a car, or even anything online without that help. 

But before you go apesh€t over this, understand that it's also against the Bible for Christians to pay interest. This is why it was in The Merchant of Venice that Shylock wanted a pound of flesh - interest was seen as being that damaging to a person. 

The term in the Bible is "usury" - and here's what the Good Book says:

"If you lend money to one of my people among you who is needy, do not treat it like a business deal; charge no interest." (Exodus 22:25)

"Suppose he has a violent son, who sheds blood or does any of these other things...

He lends at interest and takes a profit.  

Will such a man live? He will not! Because he has done all these detestable things, he is to be put to death; his blood will be on his own head." (Ezekiel 18:10,13)

"But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked." (Luke 6:35)

Guns, Spoons, Keyboards, and other Tools

Perhaps you've seen this image.  This appears to be the original, even though it is available in much better colors elsewhere, it is the earliest copy and the only one attributed that I could find:

Acker, Charlie.  "Spoons made me fat."  The Libertarian Enterprise, # 672.  May 27, 2012

The implicit argument of this picture boils down to this: Arguing that guns are responsible for crimes or, more specifically, murders is the same as arguing that spoons are responsible for fat.  Many Republicans or self-proclaimed Libertarians I know posted the picture on Facebook not long after.

Today, I saw another argument of a similar vein on Facebook (I included my reply):

It's an amusing argument, but of course, any time spent thinking about it proves both of these analogies are horribly inadequate.  Spoons and keyboards are only tools, but guns can be so much more than that.  Both keyboard and spoon analogies depend on people not questioning them, but rather simply having a knee-jerk reaction of affirmation, because they agree with those people's thoughts on gun control already.  I don't need to talk about that here - confirmation bias is already a well-known phenomenon.

But, I do think it'd be helpful to do two things: First, explain where those comparisons break down; Second, create new and more accurate comparisons that would be helpful to share in their stead.

First, we already know that guns have a storied place in our society as tools that can solve problems beyond simply protecting life.  I talked about this recently in my post, "Hitting Where You Aim."  To briefly recap: because we see guns as the tools of "good guys" used to stop "bad guys," and because we're all good guy in our own stories, we always see guns as tools we can use to stop whoever we perceive as bad, whether or not those persons really are.

If we were to try to extend the spoon analogy to that, we would have to see spoons employed in our culture as tools to save people from hunger by making them fat.  In fact, we would elevate the position of obesity to one of our highest aspirations in society, rather than shaming people for being obese or overweight.  We would show advertisements and movies and TV shows where someone's life was saved because they had access to a spoon and the ammunition (food) necessary to use it.  And the result?  Every time you felt the slightest hunger pain, you would immediately reach for your spoon to try to satisfy it.

We have something close to that, though.

Replace "spoon" with "sugary snacks" in that scenario and suddenly a lot of things click into place.  We do advertise the crap out of sugary snacks, and thanks to governmental intervention and a lot of engineering know-how, we've removed barriers to access for such snacks.  They're some of the cheapest things you can get.  In advertisements, people often reach for snacks to satisfy their slightest hunger pangs.  In fact, Snickers advertisements used to carry the phrase, "Hungry, why wait?"  The premise being that Snickers is always readily available.  And, when you have that sudden urge to eat and you have something readily available, that's what you tend to choose.

This more closely fits the model of guns.  You see advertising constantly telling you that you can use it to solve your problems, and when you own one, it's readily available should the mood strike to solve such problems.

Thus, here's a better version of that original picture:

Yup, I can believe that's true.

The Meaning of Life

We have a basic belief in this country - people who work hard can improve their situation in life.  We celebrate success stories about poor students who studied hard and got college degrees and went on to make something we generally define as success that means that they earned enough money to live comfortably and send their own kids to college.  We celebrate stories about people who were bullied throughout school but learned to deal with it by making people laugh, and who went on to become successful comedians.  We celebrate the dropouts who start up companies in their garages, companies that are now worth billions and billions of dollars.

And by celebrating those stories, we hold out hope for ourselves, that through our own hard work and intelligence, our willingness to take risks and struggle through adversity, we too might be able to earn a better-than-average life for ourselves.

Often we see the failings of others to achieve that kind of success, and we put the blame squarely on their shoulders for doing any number of unforgivable sins - not going to college; not getting the right degree in college; having children too early or out of wedlock or with a spouse who was a bad choice (perhaps because he or she had the audacity to drop dead at a young age); getting hooked on drugs, even legal ones like alcohol; or simply making the wrong choices about what employment to accept.  We blame people, and we believe that if they just worked harder, if they just had better education or educational opportunities, if they just were willing to try, they could have money, too. 

We assume that somehow magically tens of millions of jobs will open up that are higher pay if the people who are working minimum wage would just pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.

And sometimes we believe that despite evidence to the contrary in our own lives, as is the case with many people I know who are low income and yet believe these things.

It's always *other* people who are making bad choices, who are taking advantage of the system, who are lazy slackers who don't want to work...

But someday soon, we're not going to be able to think that way, because we're all out of jobs:

This video is a pretty spot-on take-down of the future we're staring at.  I can speak to it myself.  In that video, he describes "automation engineers" who are working actively to program computers to do the jobs that humans used to do.  That's exactly what I do for a living.  Companies like it because once the programming is done, a small team of engineers can handle the work that used to take hundreds of people, and at a fraction of the cost.  This means the companies can lower their rates to compete in the market, and when competition isn't strong, it means they can also increase their profit margins.

That's because humans are huge portions of the costs companies pay.  The space that you use to work - bathrooms, break rooms, your desk, and so on - costs money, in addition to simply payroll expenses, insurance, taxes, and so on.  A computer that can do the job of hundreds can fit in a cabinet that is less than a square yard or meter.

And as this video notes, we programmers are getting better at replicating your abilities on a computer level.

Eventually, every job will be replaced by a computer, and then only the heads of companies and their immediate support staff will be human jobs.  In that day and age, it's not feasible for every human being to be a CEO - even minimizing space for computers, there isn't enough room for all of those companies, given that a single company can supply all of a given type of thing.  Ford could successfully manufacture every car in the world, Apple could make every computer, Samsung every phone.  While competition breeds innovation, we've seen that that's still true when there's very limited competition, when only a handful of companies fill every role in a given field.  There could never be a thousand successful cell phone manufacturers, let alone millions.

As such, we need a new concept for what it means to be human.  Currently, we expect that a human will contribute in some way to society, and we value that contribution via whether someone is willing to pay for the human to do that thing, and how much.  As such, we think that basketball and football stars contribute thousands of times more to society than teachers and nurses and firefighters and police officers, all of whom contribute several times more than barristas and cashiers and customer service reps.  But when all of those jobs disappear, what will be the function of humanity?  There's only a limited extent to which creativity is the answer - we can't all be artists and musicians and so on, some of us simply lack any such talents. 

In that day, we will have to move to an economy that says "sure, you can have your companies making products worldwide, and those companies can even elevate your position in life so that you have the very nicest things, but you're going to have to give back to all the people who got you there, who helped pay for your goods and paid for the roads you delivered those goods on and so on."  An economy that recognizes that not every person can work, but that not every person needs to work, because we produce EVERYTHING in such abundance that work is no longer a meaningful measure of how much you contributed to that abundance.

In that day, we will have to set up a society that:

1. Heavily taxes business
2. Uses those taxes to completely pay for food, housing, water, clothing, education, medical care, and transportation for everyone, regardless of income or whatever.

Imagine this...

Imagine a primitive microeconomy.  A small group of people who hunt animals together for food.  There are perhaps ten of them.  They work together to build each other's houses, and to hunt food together, and so on.  One day, Nirk figures out that Zark is the best hunter, so Nirk says to Zark: "You are better at hunting than I am, and I am better at building and tearing down houses.  Why don't you spend more time hunting, and I'll take care of tearing down your house and moving it to the next location?  That way, we'll both be more efficient."  Zark likes the idea, and so she agrees.  The two of them get a few minutes more leisure time each day because they have divided up their work this way.  Soon, Tork sees what they're doing, and says "hey, I want in on this.  I can make and clean your clothes for you, if you'll do those things for me."  They agree, and all three get a few more minutes in their days.  Berk joins in to cook the food that Zark brings in, and Jurk takes care of all of the children, teaching them and making sure they're not under foot.  And all of them get a few more minutes of leisure time in their days, because they're more efficient.

Eventually, they start inventing things.  Mirk builds a device that can hunt animals better than Zark can.  And so everyone asks Mirk to hunt for them, but now Zark has nothing to do.  They give Zark some menial jobs, but it's not what Zark wants to do. 

But, because they're a community, they say "Look, Zark, we're sorry we took away your job.  You can keep doing it if you like, but there's no need for it anymore, because Mirk brings in more food than you do.  But that's OK.  We'll still move and build your house, we'll still do your laundry, we'll still care for your kids, because you are our sister and we love you.  But more importantly, we'll do these things because we're still so efficient at them.  What would take you all day will take each of us only a few minutes.  In our abundance, we can care for you."

Or they can make Zark starve... and then when Mirk takes over Berk's job, Jurk and Tork still feel safe, and so they let Mirk have even more abundance because they feel like Mirk earned it, while Zark and Berk sat around doing nothing because there was nothing for them to do.  And then Tork loses his job, too.   And finally Jurk does.  And now, because Mirk has all the power, Mirk can make the others starve, and keep them from doing any useful work.

And that's just it.  In this future age where robots make everything, we will have abundance, and we can share that abundance around.  We can, or we can hoard it all in the hands of a few people, and make the majority starve.

But that's not the future.  That's now.  Every day we become more efficient at our work - so much that not every job is necessary.  The current Gross National Income, per capita, in the U.S. is over $55,000.  That's per person.  Including children.  And yet, average pay is less than half that.  This means that we could literally have half the population out of work and pay for them at the same average level.  Given that roughly 23.3% of people in the U.S. are children under 18, that means our current economy *could* pay every adult $71,000 per year.  Even if we said that $50,000 was plenty per adult, we could have *42%* unemployment and still pay for everyone.

But we can't see that, because to get to our low average pay, we've severely underpaid people for many, many years.  It appears to many of us that our economy would collapse if unemployment significantly rose, if we started simply paying for everything for everyone. 

It's clearly not true, but it's what we think is true.

Some day, we'll be forced to face it.  I hope we can get over this ridiculous notion long before then. 

Schadenfreude

Ah schadenfreude, the wonderful guilty sense of pleasure you get when someone screws up in a big way.  We all get it, even if it's not a very loving feeling to have. 

But I think the entire Oklahoma Democratic Party had a collective orgasm of schadenfreude pleasure this week.

Yesterday, the Oklahoma Republican Party's Facebook page had a post, which has (in the last hour since I started collecting quotes and links for this article) now been taken down.  Fortunately, a cornucopia of sites caught it before they did.  In fact, it's safe to say that this post went viral in a big way:

The Food Stamp Program, administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is proud to be distributing this year the greatest amount of free Meals and Food Stamps ever, to 46 million people.

Meanwhile, the National Park Service, administered by the U.S. Department of the Interior, asks us "Please Do Not Feed the Animals." Their stated reason for the policy is because "The animals will grow dependent on handouts and will not learn to take care of themselves."

Thus ends today's lesson in irony ‪#‎OKGOP‬ (source)

In the 24 hours since, news agencies around the country have picked up the story, noting how the GOP is comparing people in need of financial assistance to wild animals.  Rachel Maddow offers a brilliant takedown of the points in the posting, noting that the food stamp program is not at a high, which she notes is "factually incorrect," and how such a posting shows "evidence of contempt" (emphasis hers) of the poor. 

The OK GOP offered what she calls "a classic non-apology apology," and I think that description is spot-on:

Last night, there was a post on our OKGOP Facebook page, and it was misinterpreted by many. I offer my apologies for those who were offended – that was not my intention.

This post was supposed to be an analogy that compared two situations illustrating the cycle of government dependency in America, not humans as animals.

However I do think that it’s important to have conversations about government welfare programs since our dependency on government is at its highest level ever.
Quoting President Reagan, “We should measure welfare’s success by how many people leave welfare, not by how many are added.”

As read in our Oklahoma Republican Statement of Principles, we believe that “free market principles are the best to stimulate our economic development rather than government subsidies or programs” and I was doing my best to echo that view.

Again, I apologize for any misconceptions that were created.

-Randy

 Which is a great way of blaming us, the readers of the original post, for our reading of it rather than taking ownership of it.

I talk about interpretation a lot.  It is theoretically possible to see the posting as a pure analogy, not saying that people are "no better than animals," but it is an extremely oversimplified analogy as that.  If the original author meant that people and animals share this in common, but that people are capable of thinking and controlling their destinies in ways that animals can't, that's what he should have said.  However, the very analogy depends upon that not being the case - dependency assumes an inability to change your situation, it takes away your "agency" (Wikipedia offers a good definition: "the capacity of an agent (a person or other entity, human or any living being in general, or soul-consciousness in religion) to act in any given environment."  It is part-and-parcel of sentience.  The comparison to animals goes deeper than merely the connection between "animal" and "person" in the analogy.  Humans can be dependent on something without being animals - that is, we are all dependent on our paychecks, for instance.  But the kind of dependency here is one without agency.

I've already talked a bit about how this perception comes about, and seeing that, it's easy to see how the animal analogy comes about. 

One final point, as I close the laptop to run home and cook some pizza, though I did not intend to end the post so quickly: the analogy is also factually wrong for the fact that it perceives animal dependency as bad and equal in kind to human dependency.  But animals had other options before becoming dependent on handouts - they were able to hunt or forage for food.  When they become dependent on handouts, they lose that ability to forage or hunt, and they start eating things that are not a natural part of their diets.  It disrupts the entire ecosystem.  That's why dependency is bad.  Our pets are dependent on us feeding them, and no one complains about that. 

But for humans, we have taken away such options.  You can't hunt without a hunting license and ostensibly some kind of weapon for that purpose.  There is no federal land where you can simply go and pick fruits and vegetables.  You cannot move about to follow animal migrations.  We erect fences and walls and pass trespassing laws to prevent that.  As such, people who, if they were actually animals, might have other options for food and for shelter, who might not need clothing or transportation or education - those people have had those options removed from them by society.  And as such, it's the responsibility of society to provide for their replacement.  It's the responsibility of society to care for people affected by the problems it creates.

Hitting where you aim

Bernie Sanders.  I'm voting for him.  I agree with him on 99% of issues and I think he focuses on things that are really important to resolve in our society.  If it matters who gets my endorsement, there you have it.

But, he's not perfect, and sadly there are some on the left who might be tempted to rethink who they support based on one of his policies:

Gun control - or rather, the lack thereof.

You see, Bernie is not a supporter of gun control.  Nevermind that the NRA gave him an F rating - as a liberal, all you have to do to earn an F rating is to NOT be in favor of AK-47 vending machines in schools, it seems.  While people on both the right and left think he's diametrically opposed to their views, he tries to take what seems to me a more sensible middle ground.

That is, some gun control makes sense and is acceptable, but it shouldn't significantly impact the 2nd amendment in the process.

I have personally had a long and storied history with the 2nd amendment. I used to love guns, and learned how to properly care for them, fire them, etc., as a kid.  I learned early on that guns must always be treated as loaded (and why).  But, when I hit my late teenage years and became suicidal, it seemed important not to have any guns around myself, despite my interest in them.  They are simply too quick and too lethal - meaning, if I had one bad day, that could be the end of it.  Since I still suffer from bouts of depression, even though those thoughts are tempered greatly, it still wouldn't be worth the risk.

Recognizing that, though, I also have to recognize that I can make that decision because gun ownership is my right.  If it was not, then the whole argument would be moot.

As a former neocon, I believed wholeheartedly in the need to keep guns as a way of defending myself and my family against governmental tyranny - as if even a group of Internet Tough Guys with SMGs could stop a fully-armed army invasion.  Heck, even our police forces these days are better armed than most countries.  As some friends on Facebook have pointed out - unless we make drones with stinger missiles and JDAMs available to the general public, we can't reasonably defend ourselves against government tyranny by way of arms.  We can only do so by way of voices.

Then there are other arguments, which I addressed here.  Some of those are actually fairly good.  As I noted there, you have about a 4-in-1,000 chance of having your home broken into by an armed robber in a given year.  This may make it seem like guns are a good idea.  Many would argue that the chances of accidental shooting are too high to risk it, but you have about a 4-in-300,000 chance of having someone in your household die from an accidental shooting if you keep a gun in the house.  So, the only way that you're NOT playing the odds from just those two things is if people shoot armed robbers in fewer than 1 in every 300 break-ins, which seems unreasonably low (although there are no stats I can find for such a thing). 

You could, however, argue that intentional shootings are much higher than that. 

You see, guns pose a risk that has nothing to do with the gun itself and everything to do with what the gun represents. 

In our society, we see guns as not merely a tool for protection and, occasionally, food.  (I have eaten deer that was hunted for sport, though I would never personally hunt.  At that point, the animal's already dead, I figure, and at least it can be used for a good cause.)  We also see guns as our salvation - against tyranny and armed robbers, as I mentioned, but also against injustice.  Our movies celebrate guns used to "save the day" from bad people.  If you read my article on Firefly, you'll see constant references to Richard Slotkin, who talks about the role guns play in American mythology as the tool of the gunslinger - "a good man with a gun" who solves society's problems via redemptive violence.  Is it any wonder that, in the aftermath of the Newtown shootings, NRA president LaPierre said, "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun, is a good guy with a gun" (Source)?  Is it any wonder that LaPierre's quote and Slotkin's quote are only off by one word - the use of "man" vs. "guy"?  LaPierre seems to have unknowingly tapped into the same mythology Slotkin describes, although for LaPierre, he genuinely believes it.

This becomes a problem when you take into consideration who the "good guy" is.

For gun supporters, the belief seems to be that if they have their guns in public places, they will be able to be the hero and save the day from "bad guys." 

In "The Dresden Files," by Jim Butcher, a wizard named Anastasia helps explain the problem with this thought:

No one is an unjust villain in his own mind, Harry.  Even - perhaps even especially - those who are the worst of us.  Some of the cruelest tyrants in history were motivated by noble ideals, or made choices that they would call 'hard but necessary steps' for the good of their nation.  We're all the hero of our own story. (source)

Each of us sees the world in terms of our own stories - we are the only actors of the story because we can only know our own thoughts.  While we may recognize the free will of other people (though certainly not all of us do), we cannot possibly understand another person's thoughts or how they arrived at them or where they'll be going with them next.  In our own minds, we have a concept of justice - one that notably often benefits us - and we may justify anything to arrive at that concept.

And this could lead a person to do horrible things if he or she believes they are justified (and let's face it, it's usually "he" in the social construction that describes this, as we can see by LaPierre and Slotkin's wordings).  It could lead a man who feels bullied to lash out at the bullies, to dehumanize them and see them as merely his tormenters rather than human beings who have a right to life.  It could lead a man who feels cheated on by a love interest (spouse or otherwise) to see himself as the victim of her actions, and to feel that she will not only escape justice but benefit from them.  It can lead a man to believe that people of other races are unfairly taking away his rights (you can read about my own descent into such thoughts here). 

And if such a person comes to such conclusions, he may also come to the conclusion that the only way to have justice for such perceived wrongs is to take that justice into his own hands.  We have many stories that celebrate the vigilante who does just this - Batman, Superman, Spiderman, and all the rest of our Superheroes also notably have a supernatural ability to distinguish right from wrong and to always be on the side of right (though some of the best of those stories blur those lines and make us question such vigilantism).  This natural ability is the same shared by the heroes of Ayn Rand's stories. 

As such, I think it'd be safe to claim that in every instance of gun violence, the shooter believes he or she is the "good guy with a gun."

How can we resolve this?  Well, sadly, guns are still necessary in some places, as the only tool capable of solving certain issues (such as a lack of natural predators for certain species). But, I think as long as we celebrate stories of "the good man with a gun" or of redemptive violence, we either have to accept that such stories will backfire horribly and result in the deaths of millions unnecessarily, or we have to ban guns entirely to prevent them from occurring.  Or, we can construct a new story, one that shows gun violence to be hard on everyone, one that finds redemption through legal justice and society banding together, while rejecting the violent stories of our past. 

And in the mean time, we can seek common ground with those who wish to keep everything Status Quo.  Republicans seem to be in favor of expanded mental health services so long as those expansions help identify people who might "go crazy and start shooting" and block their access to guns so that the rest of the population (all those people who are "good guys with guns") can continue drinking from the gunmetal fountains pouring out of Madison, NC.  It's a great place to start.

All things work for good

I heard an odd sentiment, and it reminded me that I used to believe this sentiment myself.  It follows somewhat with the idea of Prosperity Theology, which I've talked about before, but it's a little harder to connect back with this horrible idea. 

It's the belief that whatever our position in life - rich or poor, sick or healthy, educated or uneducated, married or single - that position is exactly the position that God has chosen for us.  If we are poor, it is because God has chosen us to be poor. 

And its perfectly OK that God has chosen us to be poor, because

we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him.... (Romans 8:28a)

If all things work together for good, then a person's poverty is good - or, if it is evil, it is simply that God isn't giving you more than you can handle, and you can handle a lot (which itself is a paraphrase and misunderstanding of 1 Corinthians 10:13 - "No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.").

By virtue of these beliefs, it is therefore a person's rightful place to be rich or to be poor, or to have whatever comes his or her way.

Indeed, some such people believe that it is a blessing to be poor - after all, Christ said, "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God" (Luke 6:20) and James reiterates:

Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? (James 2:5)

And, even if it's not GOOD to be poor, then poverty is simply nothing more than everyone deserves, since "the wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23a) and "Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me" (Psalms 51:5) and "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23).  Every person deserves death, and any better we receive, whatever table scraps we might be thrown, is better than we deserve.

...

All of this might be fine, IF it's used as a way to help someone who is suffering feel better about that suffering, if it is used to give them hope for a better life in the world to come.  (Although the discussion of everyone deserving death is a discussion for another time.)  Unfortunately, when it's used as part of a defense of a world structured to keep funneling money into the hands of the wealthy and keep the poor suffering under the weight of the law, it's unconscionable.  It makes us lament, as Jeremiah does,

You are always righteous, Lord,
    when I bring a case before you.
Yet I would speak with you about your justice:
    Why does the way of the wicked prosper?
    Why do all the faithless live at ease? (Jeremiah 12:1)

Jeremiah recognized that such a thing is not just - as did Solomon (Ecclesiastes 8:14).   Interestingly, in Jeremiah's conversation with God, God never argued with Jeremiah about his claim that this is not justice.  In fact, God seemed pretty pissed off about the LACK of justice. 

James, in making that claim about how the poor are rich in faith, was actually saying something much more complex.  Here it is in context:

My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism.  Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court? Are they not the ones who are blaspheming the noble name of him to whom you belong?

If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing right. But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers.

Whether the poor are "supposed to be poor" or not, that's not for us to judge.  Rather, we are supposed to treat them equally with the rich, not to grant the wealthy favoritism - which we clearly do in all parts of society.  And that's just a claim about equality - there are obviously so many more verses about how we are to treat the poor, all of which have to do with helping them find clothing, food, shelter, and so on.  James connects this whole argument back to the "love your neighbor" law of Jesus, just as I had done here.

Love demands we help the poor, without judgment, but as James notes, we all "become judges with evil thoughts."

First Trump, now Coulter: All illegal immigrants are rapists or molesters.

When announcing his campaign for president, Donald Trump said,

When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're not sending you. They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.  (Source)

A lot of people on the Tulsa World's link of the follow-up story, when Univision and NBC dumped their relationships with Trump over the comments, got upset, arguing that Trump was right in his comments, which boggles my mind.  The natural way to read this sentence, I would think, is that Trump is saying everyone who illegally immigrates to the U.S. is a rapist, a criminal, and a drug courier.  Perhaps he merely means that those things are more rampant in the illegal immigrant population than in the average population (which you could read into it by his "good people" comment).  In that case, it's an argument we could evaluate based on available data and determine if these crimes are more prevalent among that population; however, this is the story that came out next...

Asked why he used the term "rapists" to characterize Mexican immigrants, Trump pointed to recent reports that as many as 80 percent of the female immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border are sexually assaulted during the trip.

CNN's Don Lemon then pointed out that those reports document immigrants being raped during their journey across the border - not the immigrants raping people after they get here.

Trump replied, "Well, somebody's doing the raping, Don. I mean, you know, somebody's doing it. Who's doing the raping? How can you say such a thing?" (source)

So rather than focusing on the issue of women being raped, and actually looking for an answer to the question "who's doing the raping," Trump appears to have decided that the men who are immigrating with these women are doing it.

Of course, that's not remotely the case.  In their 2010 study on the issue, titled "Invisible Victims: Migrants on the Move in Mexico" (available here), Amnesty International detailed several cases of women being raped on their way to the U.S., and in none of their stories do they ever mention that it was an immigrant doing it.  In fact, not even the coyotes ferrying the women across the border were accused of it, although they often may have been complicit.  Instead, these rapes usually occurred on both sides of the border by gangs who were abducting women and engaging in human trafficking, and sometimes even by the law enforcement agencies tasked with protecting them.  

Ann Coulter defended Trump's comments in a post that reads more like a conspiracy theorist's attempts to disprove the moon landing than an authoritative argument on the topic, but apparently decided to double down on the topic herself:

“You have to understand,” Coulter told Breitbart News, “screaming and defacing things is how Latin Americans express disagreement. At least as long as they were destroying books and screaming in a book store, they weren’t molesting any 4-year-olds.”  (Source)

Which is to say that the default position for someone from Latin America is to molest children?

Either that, or it's going to become the model of how I make fun of Ann Coulter going forward...

"At least if she's writing a blithering blog post, she's not biting the heads off hamsters."
"At least if she's appearing on Fox News, she's not slitting the throats of infants just to feel the warmth of their blood on her hands."

and so on...