Category Archives: Society

Gun laws punish those who abide by the law

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It was almost impossible that the tragic attempted assassination of Representative Gabrielle Giffords would not spawn calls to regulate private access to firearms. After all, the shooter obtained his firearm legally under Arizona’s law and then used that firearm to murder 6 people and wound 18 more.

Gun control advocates will try to tell us that, if Jared Loughner had not been able to legally buy the firearm he used, the shootings would not have happened. Their argument follows that, if firearms laws were more strict and penalties more severe, tragedies like the one in Tuscon would not happen.

It is ironic, then, to look right across the southern border, just 60 miles from Tuscon. Mexico has some of the strictest gun laws in the world, yet is currently experiencing some of the worst gun violence in the world at the same time.

The facts are that criminals do not care how they get their guns, but they will get them if they want them. On the other hand, law-abiding citizens tend to follow the law, no matter how troublesome those laws may be, and are often left defenseless in the face of criminal acts as a result.

It is impossible to know whether or not stricter gun laws might have deterred Loughner, but it is easy to know whether stricter gun laws will reduce gun crime or crime in general. Laws to not force people to be more moral, and those who plan to commit crimes will find ways to do so regardless of the law.

Instead of focusing on the tool used by the criminal, why not focus on the criminals themselves? Jared Loughner showed signs that he was not stable long before the incident that will define the rest of his life. In most cases, people who commit these kinds of crimes leave long trails of warning signs that no one paid attention to. Why focus on the gun when we could focus on helping the individual instead?

DLH

I sense a revolution coming, and a lot of you aren’t going to like it

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As some of you may have gathered, I do a lot of reading, especially about history, politics, and current events. Over the past few months, I’ve noticed a new theme starting to grow, first in comments, then in mainstream articles wherein the writers have begun to question the salaries earned by public sector employees at the taxpayers expense.

I am not commenting on whether or not public sector employees make too much, not enough, or whether what they do is of benefit to the people paying for it. Instead, I am considering what may be the first casualty of the coming taxpayer revolution against bloated government: public sector pay.

Let’s face it. Most taxpayers have no idea what most public sector employees do for a living outside vague notions of the jobs people like teachers, police officers, or firefighters have. Even with jobs the taxpayers think they understand, I suspect most taxpayers think people doing those jobs get paid too much, take advantage of the system, and (perhaps worst of all) could not get jobs elsewhere.

Having been a public sector employee at one time, I can see how the taxpayers might get that impression, which is why I think it is so easy for the taxpayers, angry at the situation we find our nation in but yet unwilling to realize the solution means they will have to make sacrifices, to think that part of the solution is to pay public sector employees less.

Unfortunately, if history is any indication of future trends, the employees who will be targeted by this anger will be the ones who least deserve it. The taxpayers will target local public sector employees–teachers, police officers, fire fighters, etc–who they depend on the most while ignoring the excesses carried out by the actual guilty parties–elected officials and career bureaucrats.

I think if history does repeat itself, the problem this time will be that many public sector employees will just quit. It will be impossible for the taxpayers to demand that, say, teachers begin their careers at 22 with master’s degrees, engage in constant professional development, put up with the taxpayers undisciplined and incapable children, and deal with the never-ending onslaught of government regulations for laborers wages. Take your pick of public sector employees, and you will find similar ridiculous notions.

I am not saying that there are not public sector employees–even teachers, police officers, and fire fighters–who do not get paid more than they should, take advantage of the system, and could not get jobs elsewhere. I am saying that the tendency is for the taxpayers to pick on the public sector employees they rely on the most because they are the most visible and the most accessible.

If we look at the history of such reactions, what we discover is that the governments enduring them and the people making them often fare badly. In the worst cases, the governments collapsed or the nations thrust themselves into civil war. In the best cases, nations endured long periods of malaise.

As a nation, we need to tackle the problems before us, and I understand that even public sector pay needs to be reformed if we are going to find our way out of the mess we’re in. I also understand that making irrational decisions based on anger rarely produces positive outcomes. Consider your demands carefully, because they will have consequences if they become reality.

DLH

“Keep your head down” represents a compromise of the Christian worldview

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I hear this idea or something like it often: “We should just keep our heads down and mind our own business.”

Usually, it comes from conservatively minded people, often from Christians, and mostly in relationship to ongoing world events the speakers find troubling. Every time I hear the idea expressed, I wonder how it jives with everything conservative Christians know about the faith and worldview we are supposed to possess.

How can we be salt and light, share the Gospel with the world, or let our gentleness be evident to all if we’re hiding from the world? How can we do the good works God has created for us to do if we keep our heads down? How can we be the citizens of a shining city on a hill if we’re minding our own business?

From my point of view, these ideas represent a fundamental compromise of the Christian worldview, and the result of that compromise has been the demise of the good our forebearers accomplished.

The Christian worldview is on that can only be lived out loud. Look at the history of our faith. It is filled with men and women who refused to be silent even in the face of exile and death. Many of our American ancestors came here as an expression of and because of their worldview. It was, in part, from their loud proclamations of belief that the ideals of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights derived their legitimacy.

Yet, modern American Christians, in great part, would rather hide when the command is to shout and make a spectacle. If we do not declare what we know and believe, how will anyone hear?

As for me, come better or worse, I will not be silent, nor will I be afraid.

DLH

Write me in for 2012

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It’s hard to believe that, a little over a month ago, we voted in what was one of the biggest transfers in party power in the history of American government. Unfortunately, so far, it looks like the transfer will result in more politics as usual, which is really the last think we need.

What we do need is political leaders who are willing to do the though job and make the hard decisions that could reverse the course the past several decades of decadence has put us on. In my opinion, those leaders will never come out of the established political parties, even the less recognized ones. Instead, the best leaders come from the selection of local people known for their honesty, integrity, and leadership.

Of course, where I am about to go is dangerous, because it assumes a lot about me and about what you might think about me, yet I am willing to go there because I am willing to do what needs to be done:

Here’s the deal: beginning with the 2012 election cycle, if you don’t have any other candidate you believe you can vote for and I can legally fill the office, write me in. I am completely serious about this. If elected, I will serve, and I think I have made my viewpoints very clear on this weblog and elsewhere. I will not campaign for an office because I find the practice as it is carried out today morally reprehensible, but if people elect me to an office, I will fill it.

Further, I pledge here and now, that if I am elected, I will not serve anywhere longer than ten years or two terms (a consideration particular to the US Senate), nor will I endorse a new candidate to replace me. Individual political office should not be a lifelong career, and it is the people’s job to pick who should represent them, and I will abide by that principle.

So, there you go. Write me in if you think I can do the job better than anyone else available. Now you have another choice.

DLH

Does the desire of the individual matter in the era of the mob-mind state?

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Once upon a time, there was a nation founded on the principle of individual liberty. With the exception of a few rules, people were free to do whatever they pleased, and they did. They filled a continent, built a promise so attractive that everyone else around the world longed to go there, and eventually conquered every imaginable distance from traveling coast to coast to traveling to the moon by the force of their collective will.

And all of this happened, arguably, because every person–granted some later than others–had the chance to be whatever he wanted to be. The limit wasn’t the sky, it was the imagination.

What happened to that nation?

Some would say that some of the people realized that they could use their collective will to take from other people’s labor, thereby not having to work so hard themselves; however, I say that it was not so much a question of labor but a question of failed imagination. Some element of society came to resent those who still showed that original spark that made that nation into what it was, and instead of finding their own spark, they decided to take it from those who still had it.

So, now there is a question: does the desire of the individual matter in an era when some people will simply take what that desire might produce? Is there any room for individual liberty in the will of the mob?

Too many people will scoff at that question and will discount it with cries of “What about all the poor and suffering?” and “Well, if they succeed, then they should have to share!”, never realizing that by taking those positions they are saying “Quit trying.” and “Do what you want, but we’ll take that too.”

And then they wonder why people quit trying and there is nothing left to take.

This is how nations end.

DLH

The science of using what we already have

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For a very long time, I’ve wondered about a core tenet of our modern, technology driven era: that what we have now is inherently better than what we have before. For example, most people will insist that farming with oil consuming tractors and modern implements is far better than anything we could have achieved continuing to use animal power, and they make that claim based on very little if any evidence.

It is because of that uncertainty that I was fascinated by the story of Bart Weetjens, a man who trains rats to sniff out landmines and tuberculosis. What Weejens has done is taken a modern, technological problem and solved it using an idea based on something that required very little technological development. His TED talk is an extraordinary understatement of the idea I think he has introduced.

And what is that idea? For me, it is the science of using what we already have instead of inventing some new, potentially damaging solution, to solve a problem. What if the problem with, say, using horses to farm isn’t that tractors are more efficient but that we never developed the technology to use horses far enough? Weetjens, I think, takes that approach with finding mines and disease.

What else can we apply this principle to?

DLH

Julian Assange: The new kingmaker?

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The rise of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks represents the rise of the non-state actor as a significant force on the world state. While historically such actors were terrorist groups, Assange and his website represent a new entry: that of the information broker.

It seems to me that, given his albeit rather tepid success so far, it is almost inevitable that he will eventually stumble upon the kind of information he is looking for: information capable of toppling powerful people or governments.

The question that remains is “then what?”

I know there are people who think that what Assange and WikiLeaks is doing is good because it somehow holds governments accountable for their actions. I find that most people who think that way rarely consider the consequences of their actions.

The consequences of Assange’s actions have the potential to be world changing, but not in a good way. What will the consequences of power vacuums be? What will the consequences of more strained international relations be? What will the consequences of reducing the most powerful nation on the planet’s ability to act be?

More than likely, Assange and his supporters will be responsible for more hardship, violence, war, and death than the people, nations, and governments they seek to discredit. They will achieve this dubious distinction by creating an international climate of distrust, suspicion, and aggression through the selective release of information designed to have those effects. And, when they succeed, far too few people will make the connection.

We have entered a dangerous time, and non-state actors represent part of that danger. The question remains as to whether the United States and the world are capable of meeting the threat and dealing with it.

DLH