What Goes Around. . .

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell recently stated he anticipates more bipartisan cooperation in 2018.  That's right, Mitch McConnell said that.  The same Mitch McConnell who bragged about stonewalling former President Obama's Supreme Court nominee in Obama's final year in office.  The same McConnell who was an integral part of the opposition party's obstructionist strategy.  It doesn't take an expert pundit to figure out what's going on here: McConnell knows the GOP will get crushed in next year's midterms, so he's suddenly realized the value of cooperation so he can extract some favorable legislation before his political capital expires.  So now he wants to play nice - how convenient.  There are probably countless members of the Democratic Party, both voters and elected officials, who don't feel McConnell and the GOP deserve any quarter whatsoever, and who have no intention of cutting them even a millimeter of slack; and given Republicans' conduct during the last eight years, who could blame them?

Here's the thing, though: as gratifying as telling the GOP to get stuffed sounds, it's a bad idea - for a combination of obvious and not-so-obvious reasons.  (Quick note: I'm referring almost entirely to the obscure Congressional rules in this post, not any policy positions; as far as I'm concerned, the GOP is on the wrong side of history on many contemporary social issues - civil rights, environmental protections, education, the church/state separation, among others - and they don't deserve any consideration on these points.  History and sociological research have already rendered verdicts, and it's time for the GOP's policy stances to be thrown onto the pile of failed ideas.  Okay - tangent over.) For one thing, neither party manages to hold a majority forever, so any procedural changes a party makes to the will eventually get passed along to the other party; and when that happens, you're giving the opposition better tools to push its agenda and undo your accomplishments.  It's foolishly shortsighted to behave as if you'll be the party in power for more than a few years, and that the changes you make won't come back to haunt you.  For another, some politicians have long memories and vindictive attitudes; so any Democratic politicians' pettiness or slights will get filed away in the "what goes around, comes around" cabinet.

Something needs to be done, though, because the GOP went beyond an opposition party to sabotaging the government with their obstructionist tactics.  Here's a baseball analogy: have you ever watched a game where the batter steps out of the box over and over, to frustrate the pitcher and get him to do something dumb? It's technically within the rules, but it's an unsportsmanlike exploitation of a loophole.  That's exactly what the GOP did with Merrick Garland: the Constitution says the Senate gives "advice and consent" over SCOTUS nominees, so the Senate had no obligation to give Garland a nomination hearing.

Someone might ask why Congress doesn't just rewrite the rules so there aren't loopholes for any party to exploit.  It's a pretty obvious solution, after all; but saying it would be difficult is like saying the sun is kind of warm.  Let's take a look at the possible ways of going about it, and all the obstacles in the way.

• The White House/Supreme Court intervenes.  Nope, awful idea.  Congress is, in many ways, a self-policing organization, and that's by design according to the principles of separation of powers and checks & balances.  Letting it write its own procedural rules leads to some disastrous results, as anyone who pays attention to government knows; but designating the Executive or Judicial Branch to manage it means Congress ceases to exist as a coequal branch of government.  Additionally, reforming Congress is outside the scope of either of the other two governmental branches.  This might solve the problem of Congressional mismanagement, but creates a far bigger one.
• Congress reforms itself.  Good luck making this happen.  Neither of the two parties truly wants to close any of those procedural loopholes.  As I already explained, the majority party likes having those little "cheat codes" while they're in power, and the minority party knows it will have its own turn sooner or later.  (For example, the Garland nomination fiasco: Mitch McConnell rightly accused the Democratic Party of hypocrisy, noting that it had done nearly the same thing during the Bush II Administration.) Those little political machinations also provide good material for reelection ads: "The other party did X, Y, and Z. Send me back to Washington and I'll clean up its mess." Which they might, but not in a way that solves the underlying issue or that can't be reversed within a few election cycles.  Senators and Representatives like those procedural tricks, and the only way to put a stop to it would be to "reboot" Congress: send every single member packing (What, you think they all came in knowing how to manipulate the processes? Someone more experienced taught them.), and strip away all those arcane rules that accumulated over the decades.
• An outside oversight agency.  There are risks involved, such as the agency being co-opted or supplanted by political insiders, and its mission distorted and turned into a partisan weapon.  Case in point: between 1976 and 1988, the League of Women Voters organized and hosted presidential debates; unfortunately, the League relinquished the task to the Commission on Presidential Debates, an organization established by the two major parties that has drawn criticism for allegedly working to exclude 3rd-party candidates.  Even if the agency was not co-opted, it would still add another layer of bureaucracy to the federal government.  
• Grassroots efforts (ballot initiatives, etc.).  It has potential, especially as people have gotten more politically active during Trump's administration; but there's no guarantee that the momentum will sustain itself.  Some Americans also possess more zeal than knowledge, and that's a moderate problem with this approach.

Those are some pretty big challenges to overcome, so the likelihood of forging a cooperative set of rules is very slim.  Not impossible, but very unlikely.  There's one other thing to consider: the risk of going too far.  I've already given my take, which is that the GOP is going beyond acting like a minority party; but many of those "cheat codes" serve an important purpose in a democracy.  A minority party needs some protections, to keep the majority from imposing its will at every turn.  This creates a lot of watered-down and unpopular compromises, but hey, that's democracy.  The GOP's obstructionism could provoke a predictable overreaction that sweeps away many important safeguards against the tyranny of the majority.  That cure would be worse than the disease.

Bottom line: I think we're stuck with what we have now.  The likely outcome is that nothing changes, and the best case scenario is a very modest improvement.  That's not very rose-colored, but it is what it is.

The Political Fallout from the GOP Tax Bill

So, Congressional Republicans went ahead and passed their controversial tax bill.  The bill economists overwhelmingly described as a bad idea.  The one that doesn't really do what it claims.  The one that's a massive financial giveaway to the wealthiest Americans at the expense of millions of middle- and lower-class workers.  They even passed it a few days before Christmas, possibly as an added "F.U." to all the people this bill hurts. So why did they do it? Why did they pass such a disastrous, harmful bill? The possibilities are: they don't know how unpopular it is, they think it actually helps, or they don't think there will be political consequences.

I don't think the GOP was blind to the bill's unpopularity, because it was honestly pretty hard to miss.  When was the last time a tax cut was unpopular? People lose their shit over tax hikes, but cuts are generally pretty popular.  Yet this tax bill polled at a 25% popularity rating.  That should tell you something right there.  Now, public opinion isn't a reliable basis for making political decisions, by which I mean a piece of legislation's popularity doesn't tell you a lot about its contents. How much do those poll participants know about the intricacies of tax policy? (Side note: an uninformed and easily swayed electorate was one reason Aristotle opposed basic democracy - which I mentioned before.) Those people probably could not articulate the consequences of this tax bill the way a tax lawyer or an economist could, which is why this bill's popularity rating is somewhat irrelevant.  This doesn't mean the bill's unpopularity should be discounted, because the GOP is pitching a story we've seen before.  We saw it in the 1980s with Ronald Reagan's "Trickle Down" Economics, and we saw it again a few years ago in Kansas.  It ended badly both times, and despite Americans' short memories, we still remember how things turned out.  The GOP is promising things will be different this time, but people aren't buying their bullshit.

So average Americans kinda knew that this bill would be bad for them, although in an imprecise way, which explains its unpopularity.  Maybe they didn't convey those sentiments to their elected officials? It's possible.  Several GOP Senators and Representatives have bailed on townhall meetings with their constituents in recent months, so the chance of having in-person meetings has gone down.  That still leaves phone calls, emails, and social media posts, but I don't know how many Americans reached out to their representatives.  In the past, Congressional offices were flooded with phone calls when the GOP attempted to repeal the ACA.  I don't know if it was the same this time.  I called my representative in the House this morning, and was able to get through easily; my experience is anecdotal, but I think it could've been a sign that not many people were calling.  I honestly would not be surprised: people have had to push back against the GOP's harmful policies a couple times already since January, and fatigue might be setting in.  It's exhausting watching the news like a hawk, waiting for the next shoe to drop, and having to contact your reps to ask them to not strip away programs that Americans depend on for basic needs again and again and again.  It wears you down over time.  That's just a possible explanation, but I don't think the GOP was unaware of their bill's unpopularity.

Could the GOP think it helps? I don't see it.  I've seen GOP figures make statements like these:

• "A married couple earning $100,000 per year ($60,000 from wages, $25,000 from their non-corporate business, and $15,000 in business income) will receive a tax cut of $2,603.50, a reduction of nearly 24 percent." - Texas Senator John Cornyn
• "The typical family of four making the typical family income of $73,000 will get a tax cut of $2,059." - Speaker of the House Paul Ryan 

Cornyn's statements show he has no idea what the average American's financial situation is, so no wonder he thinks this tax cut is helpful.  At least Paul Ryan had a reasonably close idea of what the average American's household income is, he was still a bit off: according to the US Census Bureau via USA Today, the average household income was $74,000.  To break that figure down a bit further, a household filing jointly earns $118,000; and a household filing separately earns $65,000.  Still, he's overestimating the tax bill's benefit by using some clever math.  Specifically, emphasizing the average tax benefit.  Why does "average" matter? Well, did you know that between me and Tom Brady, we've won an average of 2.5 Super Bowls? So, yeah, "average" isn't the best way to determine the tax bill's benefit.  Here's a better one.

 

(Graphic courtesy of NPR and the Tax Policy Center)

Here's a link to the full report, if you want it.  It's pretty easy to see how tilted this tax bill is toward high earners, and it gets even more unequal when you look at how much the bill saves lower income brackets.  If you're in the $40K - $50K range, your annual benefit is a whopping $570.  Divide that by twelve, and the monthly benefit is $47.50.  How far does $48 go? Two tanks of gas? One month's phone bill? That's insulting no matter what your status is. But no, the GOP couldn't stop there.  Did I mention that some of the tax cuts expire in a few years, while the corporate ones are permanent? Yeah, nice.  Maybe they do think it actually helps - see Cornyn's and Ryan's statements earlier - but I think it's more likely they're engaging in some high-level bullshitting.

That leaves another possibility, that the GOP doesn't think there will be political consequences.  They could be banking on Americans forgetting about this tax bill by the 2018 elections, which is a possibility given Americans' short memories.  They could also be underestimating the Democrats, which could be a possibility - the Democrats are still plagued by infighting and aimlessness a year after the Presidential election.  However, the recent Alabama Senate race and the earlier elections in Virginia and other places show that the Democrats have something working, even if they don't know what it is.  The point is, the momentum is in the Democrats' favor, and despite them not capitalizing on the GOP's and Trump's ineptness and unpopularity, they appear likely to win big in 2018.  If that happens, the Democrats will almost certainly repeal the GOP tax bill.

So why would the GOP pass a hugely unpopular bill, that doesn't help most Americans at all, and will probably be repealed in just a few years? There's another possibility, and it kind of ties into the GOP believing there won't be any political consequences.  That is that the GOP expects to lose, and they'll come out relatively unscathed on the other side of the elections.  They'll have cushy jobs or fat retirement accounts waiting for them, and that's a pretty sweet deal for them.  They'll be reviled by many Americans for at least a while, but our opinions don't matter because they don't give a rat's ass about us "commoners".  They probably have their own upscale gated community picked out already, so they won't have to mingle with us. 

Honestly, I'd be okay with that.  It's galling to think they'll get by without facing any serious consequences for treating the people they were supposed to represent with disdain that borders on cruelty, but when you look at it, it's a win all around.  They go away and stay out of our lives, and their obnoxious bill gets repealed in a year or so (as long as the Democrats don't find a way to bungle what should be a legislative rout). 

So, buckle up, I guess.  It's gonna be a bumpy ride for the next year or so, but it should get a bit smoother after that.

PS: Don't screw this up, Democrats. 

Internet Professionalism

One of my aspirations when I started this blog was that it would someday gain a decent-sized following, which I could exchange into a successful and profitable on-the-side project (like Jim Wright aka Stonekettle) and maybe a podcast (like Dan Carlin) eventually.  Reaching either of those goals involved a lot of processes, but two in particular: I had to deliver quality content on a consistent basis, and I had to maintain a certain level of professionalism and cordiality when interacting with my readers.

I didn't do a very good job of the latter on Tuesday, while discussing my Alabama Senate race post with a reader on Twitter.  I did a poor job of articulating my position, and reacted badly to what I perceived to be either intellectual dishonesty or trolling on the reader's part.  Truthfully, I've never been the most patient person when dealing with different points of view; and my supply of patience gets significantly smaller when that different point of view comes from a source I consider a troll or a fool.  My temper was also frayed from some work-related stresses, too, which put me in a somewhat foul mood.

None of that excuses my behavior, though.  Despite a few verbal cheap shots, that reader came looking for rational debate; however, I felt like I was under attack and reacted by lashing out.  In doing so, I undermined my position as well as my credibility.  I made myself look close-minded and thin-skinned, and incapable of taking criticism.  I may not always succeed, but in the future I will make more of an effort to exercise patience.

How America Got Its Mind Back

So, Roy Moore lost the special Alabama Senate race.  A creepy old man whose public image flaunts so many of the characteristics a lot of Alabamans love (a love of guns, racism and bigotry, pseudo-Christianity, ignorance as a virtue) was decisively beaten by Democrat Doug Jones.  That's a pretty big deal, since Alabama is part of the deep red South, a state where "Democrat" is a 4-letter word in many rural and smaller urban areas.  It's a big deal since Alabama is casually open when it comes to implementing voter suppression measures specifically targeting POC, and those POC still turned out in droves to cast ballots for Doug Jones.  That's what democracy looks like.  Also, huge "thank you" to all those POC for pulling this off - the Jones victory wouldn't have been possible without them.

Add tonight's election outcome to the results of the November 7 elections, and it's clear there's a trend emerging.  There were several elections that day, so here are a few of the important ones.  Ralph Northam defeated Ed Gillespie in the Virginia gubernatorial race.  Also in Virginia, Danica Roem became the first transgender candidate to serve in the VA legislature.  Maine residents passed a Medicaid expansion initiative.  St. Paul, MN, elected its first black mayor (Melvin Carter) and Seattle elected its first lesbian mayor (Jenny Durkan).  In many ways, the November 7 elections were a repudiation of Trump's first year in office.

A lot seems to have changed in a year.  In November of 2016, American citizens let their guards down, got complacent, bored, and disinterested, and let a raving racist moron sneak into the White House.  That was our dead serious, "Oh shit, we need to reexamine our lives" moment, and we've had a lot of time to clean up and ditch the destructive behaviors in the year and change since.  The results of November's and tonight's elections tells me that America might have learned a thing or two.

There's still a lot of work to be done, though. First, not electing a racist and accused pedophile isn't a high bar to clear for democracy - there shouldn't have ever been any doubt that a candidate with that baggage would lose.   So, we all need to keep taking that hard look in the mirror.  Second, the institutional corruption still runs deep throughout our government, at all levels.  Trump just brought it to our attention because he was so brazen and clumsy about it - like when a nagging ache becomes so excruciating that you can't put off seeing a doctor any longer.  Let's not pretend that replacing Republicans with Democrats solves some of the most pressing problems, like military interventionism or unsustainable spending; but putting the Democrats back in power is a repudiation of what Trump and the modern GOP stand for - which are some of the worst parts of human nature: intolerance, greed, cruelty and selfishness.

America's realized it has a problem, and has taken the first baby steps to correct it.

Frogs and Boiling Water: Trump's Incremental Swing toward Authoritarianism

Feel great yet, America?

We've all heard that folksy wisdom about the frog and the boiling water, or about glaciers moving slowly.  Each piece of wisdom has essentially the same take-away: that we can overlook incremental shifts if they occur slowly, until enough increments have accumulated, and we're in an entirely different situation.

It's been almost a full year into the Trump presidency, and if you look at the long-term view, there's been a noticeable shift toward authoritarianism.  It's not a major shift, but it is a noteworthy one, because any movement toward authoritarianism is noteworthy.  So what has this administration done so far that has nudged us toward authoritarianism? Here's a list of the most significant things it's done:

• Floating the idea of privatizing intelligence collection
• Publicly disparaging the judicial system, the FBI, and the media - all key democratic institutions, in their own way
• Moving to centralize decision-making among his inner circle (AKA family members)
• Establishing an commission to investigate the overhyped voter fraud problem, likely intended to disenfranchise millions of voters
• Expressing admiration for brutal despots and heavy-handed law enforcement officers and harsh tactics
• Hinting that thousands of Americans are under surveillance (while his administration's lawyers have argued they can continue a controversial surveillance program even if Congressional authorization expires)

Feel great yet, America?

There are two ways to look at this.  On one hand, a lot of this is just posturing - a mix of blustery rants, fueled by Trump's anger and frustration in reaction to policy defeats, and him being a masterful showman and playing to the crowd.  Trump hasn't taken many concrete actions to translate his words into policies.  On the other hand, it's probably not a coincidence that authoritarianism is a recurring theme in Trump's words and opinions.  Any tendency that surfaces so many times is a sign of a belief a person holds.  When Trump remarked that he'd only acknowledge the election results if he won, maybe he was joking - but there was a grain of honesty in it.  On some level, Trump was giving us a glimpse behind the curtain. 

There are also many parallels between Trump's words (and deeds) and things both past and present authoritarian regimes have done.  Sarah Kendzior (among other journalists) has made a career researching authoritarian regimes, and she has been sounding the alarm about the Trump administration for months.  She has written some truly amazing articles.  When I first discovered her writing, I thought she was being too alarmist; but she has been well ahead of the curve in predicting Trump's next moves. And even if it's just talk, the president's words send a message of what's acceptable to all the subordinate Executive Branch agencies.  It's not a coincidence that ICE methods have gotten harsher since Trump took office.  Things like these are more like small steps than giant leap, but even small steps deserve pushback.

In my lifetime, I've never doubted that a president would step down once his term was over - until now.  This is why Trump's statements can't be written off as harmless jokes.  When he made the remark about honoring the election results, it was like saying "bomb" in an airport.  It may be said in jest, but it's not something to joke about.  And Trump has said a lot of things that could be interpreted as signs he might not step down.  Additionally, Trump enjoys a lot of legal advantages and protections he didn't get as a private citizen - which will become more important to him and his inner circle as the Mueller investigation closes in.

And even if Trump does leave voluntarily, what about where we are as a country?

Because the truth is, Trump's campaign rhetoric had a grain of truth to it: DC is a swamp that needs draining.  The politicians and wealthy donors take care of each other, while they put on a show of holding those who step out of line accountable.  Remember General Petraeus? He would be in jail for the rest of his life if he'd been a junior enlisted without the right political connections.  How about GWB and the Iraq War architects? That got swept under the rug, and nobody was held accountable.  Same thing with the Wall Street banking CEOs who crashed the economy in 2008 - nobody went to jail for that.  People see all of that, and it feeds a narrative that the government is neglecting average Joes and Janes - and perception creates reality.  Right now, that perception/reality is feeding a lot of frustration with the status quo.

Feel great yet, America? You should; because as bad as things have gotten, there's a glimmer of hope on the horizon.  People are getting more politically active.  A record number of women have filed to run for office, Paul Ryan is facing a credible challenger to his House seat, the Virginia election was a kind-of referendum on Trump's performance, and the Women's March drew one of the biggest crowds in US history.  For the most part, our institutions are holding, too.  Trump is stocking federal judge positions with ideologically similar candidates, and that goes in the "loss" column; but the victories outweigh that. 

The battle to undo Trump's damage and set things right will not be easy, but the end result will be worth it. 

Feel great, America.

Party Before Country, No Matter What

So at the moment, both major political parties are dealing with their own sexual misconduct scandals.  The GOP's is Alabama Senator Roy Moore, who just over two weeks away from a special election in his home state, the winner of which fills a vacant United States Senate seat.  Meanwhile, the Democrats are dealing with a growing number of allegations against Minnesota's comedian-turned-Senator Al Franken, as well as Michigan Representative John Conyers, who also happens to sit on the fairly important House Judiciary Committee.  Or, he used to, anyway; on November 26th, Conyers stepped down from that committee as part of the investigation into the allegations against him. 

Amazingly (to me, anyway; Congress' complete lack of morality still shocks me, despite everything I've seen), key leaders from both parties found ways to excuse their colleagues' misdeeds - probably while contemplating the overall agenda.  On one side of the aisle, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell contemplated the idea of urging Luther Strange (Alabama's temporarily appointed Senator) to resign, as a way of avoiding the state's upcoming special election.  On the other side, Nancy Pelosi waffled and refused to mete out a harsher punishment than some stern language toward Conyers.

That's sad and disgraceful, especially by the Democrats.  Franken and Conyers's disgusting actions are nowhere near as bad as Moore's vile pedophilia, but neither of the two Democrats appear to be squeaky clean either.  Their punishments should be more severe, given the apparent patterns of misbehavior on both their parts.  I've long since given up expecting even the slightest shred of decency from the GOP - why would I think a party that condones Trump's behavior, associates with Nazi sympathizers like Steve Bannon and Seb Gorka, and panders to the worst parts of society, like racists and science deniers? The GOP is a lost cause.

But the Democrats want to take back Congress next year, and the Presidency in 2020.  A lot of Americans want them to, also.  But why should the country vote them back in, if this is the standard for acceptable conduct they're setting? Now, some of the rank-and-file Congressmen have known Franken and Conyers for years.  They've probably played together for Congressional softball games, or gone on "fact-finding" junkets together, or shot the breeze at weekend BBQs or after-work dinners at DC's finest restaurants.  Pelosi is not a rank-and-file Democrat, though.  She's in a leadership position, which means two things.  First, she's not there to be anybody's friend; her job is to take responsibility for problems and fix them.  Second, her colleagues and constituents look to her to set the standard for acceptable conduct, and she just told them all that bad behavior will still be acceptable, unless you really get out of control.

Unlike Kay Ivey, Pelosi is smart enough to not publicly state her reasons, but she's letting Conyers off with a light punishment for the same reason that the GOP won't abandon Moore: both parties consider keeping Congress full of their members crucially important.  And yes, it is important.  Trump and the GOP are pushing a lot of destructive policies: the tax plan, the ACA mandate repeal, judicial nominees.  Given those things, isn't keeping Franken and Conyers in play a necessary evil?

No.  NO.  This is bigger than the GOP's horrible governance.  Americans need elected officials to stop the GOP cold, but they (we) also need those same officials to start regaining our trust.  Part of what made the 2016 election stand out was that a large portion of the electorate rejected the status quo.  Voters sent a loud, powerful signal to Washington, and just over a year later, it doesn't seem like Washington got that message.  If the Democrats would clean out their own house, it would be a sign that they're hearing us.  The GOP legislation will hurt, but abandoning all sense of ethics to score a legislative win will hurt more in the long run, by further eroding Americans' trust in governmental institutions.  This isn't war, and the stakes aren't so high that you need to collaborate with the devil like FDR did, in order to win.

The Democrats have a choice.  They can cross any lines, abandon any morals, do whatever it takes to push back against the GOP, and probably gain some short-term victories.  Or they can act with honor, integrity, and decency, and show the American public they are fit to govern.  They can put the country ahead of a legislative "win" for their party.  They can help make Americans proud of their elected officials again, instead of being embarrassed of the current pack of miscreants and dirtbags.  That's worth more than a few legislative victories.

Hard Times and Heroes

"It's only in the face of horror that you truly find your nobler selves. And you can be so noble. So, I'll bring you pain, I'll bring you horror, so that you may rise above it." - Tilda Swinton as Gabriel, Constantine (2005)

Hollywood uses an occasional plot device to make the heroes become heroes: someone will inflict a tragedy upon them so that they rise to the occasion and reach their greatest potential.  Nick Fury kind of did it in The Avengers.  Gabriel wants to do it for all of humanity in Constantine.  And maybe in Donald Trump's and the GOP's twisted brains, that's what they think they are doing.  Rolling back so many of our current safety/civil rights/environmental/workers' rights protections, that we, as Americans, get off of our lazy, selfish, entitled asses and fight like hell to get them back.  Thus Making America Great Again in the process.

 

That paragraph above is sarcasm, by the way.  It's more likely that Trump & the GOP, along with their corporate paymasters, don't give a shit about anyone but themselves.  They've never cared if America becomes a giant shit heap as long as they're at the top of the heap; and now they're working feverishly to accelerate the defecation process.  So what happens if we let this continue unimpeded? I'll let Ramsay Bolton answer that:

Rollerblading, Demagogues, and Economic Downturns

A post-apocalyptic dystopia is a quick, easy setting for any story: just drop the protagonist(s) in the middle of a really messed-up situation, and have them fight like hell just to survive.  A lot of well-known works began in the aftermath of some catastrophic event: The Hunger Games, Mad Max, Logan's Run, 1984, and Brave New World, to name a handful of popular ones.  Naturally, there are a lot of lesser-known ones, such as the one that's the subject of this post.

Back in 1990, a B-movie called Prayer of the Rollerboys came out.  Since its major selling points were Corey Haim and rollerblading, when rollerblading came close to being cool (Was rollerblading ever cool? I thought it was, but I was probably in the minority), I'm guessing that you haven't seen it.  It was mostly forgettable, but it had a unique angle on the dystopian society setting.  The story begins several years after the United States has suffered a massive economic crash, and the Rollerboys are a powerful crime organization that rose to prominence in its wake.  The group pulls in money by dealing a fictional drug called "mist", and promotes a lot of overtly racist ideology.  I won't recap any more of the plot, because it's really not important; but the backstory and setting seemed interesting, which is why this movie gets a blog post about it.  The movie's first few minutes contains a monologue by the Rollerboys' leader, which provides important context to the movie.  It's also important to this post, so I'm going to quote it here:

"Before many of you were born, our parents caused the great crash.  They were consumed with greed.  They ignored repeated warnings, and borrowed more money than they could ever repay.  They lost our farms, lost our factories, lost our homes.  Alien races foreclosed on our nation while we--we were locked in homeless camps.  Now America belongs to the enemy.  Forget your parents.  They didn't care about us.  We are the new generation, and we are the remedy.  You need a new family--a family that cares.  The Rollerboys care.  Join with us.  Let us be your strength.  Let us be your warriors.  Help the white army win back our homeland.  The Day of the Rope is coming."

That little speech pretty much gives away the fact that the movie is an analogy for Nazi Germany, and several other parts of the movie reinforce this connection.  It also relies on the traditional wisdom about economic hardship creating an opportunity for demagogues and wanna-be despots to gain power, which has happened countless times throughout recorded history.  Some people might also see it as a cautionary tale for America, because the government's trend of racking up massive deficits has raised alarms from some economists.  One could draw further parallels to this movie by referencing any number of news headlines, because there is never a shortage of things to prompt severe panic.  Maybe America is on the verge of crashing into total disaster, who knows? I could point to events during each of the past five or six decades where a lot of people thought the country was verging on ruin too. (I might do a blog post about that in the future.)

History is like a never-ending game of Russian Roulette, and nobody can predict when the gun will go "bang" when someone pulls the trigger.  I'd tell people to not read too much into this movie, and just see it as historical allegory.

Remembrance Day 2017

"In combat, there are no winners.  The victors just happen to lose less than the vanquished.  One side may impose its will on the other, but there is nothing noble or virtuous about the process.  People are killed and maimed, homes and communities are destroyed, lives are shattered, families are broken apart and scattered to the wind--and just a few years later, we can barely remember why." - Eric L. Haney, Inside Delta Force

November 11th is recognized in a slightly different way in many other countries.  Here in the United States, we observe Veterans Day, while Great Britain and several of its former territories call it Remembrance Day, and other nations observe Armistice Day.  These holidays both trace their origins back to the end of World War I, specifically the signing of the armistice that officially brought the war to a close.  It seemed like a symbolically fitting way to commemorate the event.  World War I devastated most of Europe in an unspeakably horrific conflict that nobody wanted to repeat.  That's why a lot of people associate it with the phrase "the war to end all wars," because its sheer destructiveness was enough to inspire mankind to end war forever.

But that is a wildly naive and idealistic goal, and people knew it even immediately after the Great War.  War has been around since the first prehistoric clans of people bumped into each other, and it's still with us a couple of billion people later.  We can design weapons with unprecedented destructive capability, believing that if the stakes get high enough nobody will want to fight - and yet, nations still find ways to fight.  We can proliferate technology that helps make us more interconnected - and people still find reasons to fight.  War has always, and will always, be with us. 

And maybe that's not necessarily a bad thing.  Occasionally (very rarely, in my opinion) there's a valid reason for the organized brutality of war.  Maybe it's a severe injustice that can't be remedied any other way, or a tyrant whose aggression needs to be checked.  But no matter what reasons are behind it, war is always horrific, whether it's a single bomb that obliterates an entire city, an emplaced machine gun that mows down charging troops by the dozen, or a roadside bomb that rips an armored Humvee apart like an aluminum soda can.

Perhaps that's why Remembrance Day or Armistice Day seem more appropriate to me.  They are more of an acknowledgement that while we can't eliminate war, we should always remember its destructive cost, so that we work as hard as we can to avoid it as much as possible.

Anthropomorphic Stuffed Tigers, Bratty Kids and Western Philosophers

This is such an obvious topic, I'm surprised I didn't think to write about it sooner.  I'm talking about one of the best comic strips of all time, and its subtle symbolic representation of two prominent Western philosophers.

This is going to be a short entry, because there isn't a lot to say, honestly.  The gist is that Bill Watterson, Calvin & Hobbes' creator, partially based both of them on the philosophers John Calvin and Thomas Hobbes.  He used the philosophers as a basis for the characters' names, and incorporated bits & pieces of the philosophers' teachings into the characters' personalities and beliefs. Here's one example:

It's a brilliant allegory that I went years without noticing.  Calvin (the theologian) believed in predestination, while Hobbes (the theorist) did not - although Hobbes (if I'm reading this right) also rejected the concept of free will.

There are many other examples of the philosophers' teaching popping up throughout the comics.  I may have to revisit my Calvin & Hobbes collection soon, to see how many I can spot.

Hacking Pandora's Server

This is going to be a hot take (I think that's the term kids are using these days - okay, I'll stop trying to be cool now) about a news story I saw earlier.  BoingBoing reports that computer techie types meshed an NSA cyberweapon with an old ransomware strain, and used amalgamation in the Wannacry ransomware attack from May of this year.

Here's what I think is the most important part of the story: the US develops this revolutionary super-weapon, and some unscrupulous party gets their hands on it, leading to dire consequences.  This isn't the first time something like this has happened, by the way.  I'm beating the drum about nuclear weapons because they provide many examples of dire consequences, but there are other weapons and technologies we probably don't want falling into the wrong hands.  For example, UAVs (drones).  Right now, the United States has a substantial lead in drone technology over other countries, but it's naive to think that could never change.  Despite the justifiable criticisms of how America employs drones, it has shown some level of restraint (such as mostly refraining from conducting strikes over major urban areas - see the two images below).

The MQ-9 Reaper can carry several different munitions, including an air-to-ground antitank missile.  Imagine what one of those could do to a crowd of people in a major city.  Do you think it's impossible that someone might give the order to do so eventually?

Here's what I'm getting at.  The United States is pretty talented when it comes to creating new weapons, but it doesn't put a lot of thought into anything after that.  This lack of planning eventually comes back to haunt us, because other countries or groups figure out how to copy our tech or make their own versions.  It's arrogant to think that we're the only country smart enough to invent these things. 

So what's the answer?  Do we destroy these weapons once we realize the potential damage they could create, along with all the research behind them? That's a good thought.  Imagine if the people spearheading the Manhattan Project demolished all the machinery and burned their notes right after the Trinity Test, or Fritz Haber destroyed his work in 1914.  Wouldn't we all be better off? Not necessarily.  Like I said earlier, it's arrogant to assume that nobody else can develop something.  The US wasn't the only nation conducting atomic weapons research in the 1930s and 1940s; if it had unilaterally halted development on the A-bomb, what country would have been the first to develop one? Probably the Soviet Union.  How different does the Cold War look if the USSR is the only country with this weapon of unprecedented destructive capability? Even the stolen NSA techno-weapon worked so well because the agency smugly assumed nobody else would discover the vulnerability in Microsoft's SMB protocol that it found.  Oops.

The best solution I can come up with is to define what is or isn't permissible early on, when you're the only one in possession of this new weapon.  The way you use the weapon creates a norm for the rest of the world on what's acceptable.  At the same time, start crafting and implementing international laws and conventions to govern the use of this new weapon; so that there's a standard with a little more authority than an unofficial norm in place.  None of these things are perfect, and nations (or people) can violate norms, laws, or conventions at will; but it's better than nothing.  And getting ahead of the problem in this way is easier than rushing to play catch-up once the weapon is everywhere.

Finally, stop using the weapon the way a kid treats an expensive new toy on Christmas morning.  Looking at you, United States.

The Question of Equality

There was this short story Kurt Vonnegut published in 1961 called Harrison Bergeron. I first read when I was a freshman at Gonzaga University, back in 1998, and it kind of stuck with me since then.  It's short enough that you can read the whole thing in about five minutes (here's a link to the whole story), but a core element of the story is that it's set in a society where everybody has been made equal. Intelligent people wear earphones that broadcast distracting noises at regular intervals, attractive people wear ugly masks, strong people must constantly wear extra weights, and so on.  The reason for this was to discourage competition and make sure nobody had an advantage over anybody else.

So why am I talking about some fifty-year-old Vonnegut novella that I read about a long time ago? Well, because it's core theme of universal equality ties in to a bunch of centuries-old writings by some very smart and observant people. First, there was this French citizen named Alexis De Tocqueville.  Tocqueville spent some time in the United States a few decades after the Revolutionary War and the signing of the Constitution.  At the time of his journey, democracy was something of a new concept in the Western world, and France was one country still figuring out what it meant. Tocqueville found many things to praise about American democracy, but he also found some potential flaws.

One such problem was what Tocqueville called the "equality of conditions", a phenomenon which he felt could eventually lead to a lack of freedom.  His thinking was that the seeds of the problem were planted because democracies tend to grant significant authority to the citizens, giving them the impression that their opinions mattered just as much as anyone else's.  Tocqueville believed this could lead to the tyranny of the majority pretty quickly, as well as setting the stage for further problems.  First, he speculated that the fear of tyranny of the majority would cause some people to grow reluctant to voice their opinions, so they didn't land on the wrong side of the issue as the majority.  If you don't think that could happen, go read up on the Asch Experiments.

Tocqueville also worried that the fear of majority rule could lead to a backlash, where citizens developed a skewed version of individualism, one marked by increased materialism.  I don't fully understand Tocqueville's points here, but he seems to be saying that the materialism becomes a way for someone to reaffirm their individual significance: "Look at all the stuff I have! I matter!" This individualism would also lead to a breakdown in communal bonds (something Tocqueville considered important).  As people became more isolated, they turned to the government to provide goods and services which their communities once did.  Tocqueville called this condition of being overly reliant on the government "democratic despotism", which created a massive bureaucratic government that could easily enforce real despotism.  The Founders were really worried about that, remember?

(By the way, it's probably not a coincidence that Tocqueville is a fan of conservatives and libertarians, because of his remarks about "democratic despotism"; one site I visited while researching this piece tried to connect social safety programs to Tocqueville's despotism and socialism/communism.  Quite the slippery slope argument.)  

Tocqueville understood that there was an inverse relationship between equality and liberty, and so did the Founders.  This is pointed out in Federalist 10, one of the most well known Federalist writings, in a slightly roundabout way:

By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.  There are two methods of curing the mischiefs of faction: the one, by removing its causes; the other, by controlling its effects.  There are again two methods of removing the causes of faction: the one, by destroying the liberty which is essential to its existence; the other, by giving to every citizen the same opinions, the same passions, and the same interests.

I've been making a roundabout argument myself, but I'm referencing Vonnegut and Tocqueville to point out the parallels between Vonnegut's story and Tocqueville's observations.  Vonnegut was being somewhat satirical by taking the concept of equality to an absurd conclusion, but the dangers Tocqueville foresaw are real.  And to some degree, they have already happened: I think the 2016 election is a good example of what happens when a large number of people decide that their uninformed opinions are just as valid as the opinions of people who have done their research.  Tocqueville understood what Socrates taught several hundred years ago, regarding the dangers of democracy; and I think he'd also agree wholeheartedly with this awesome quote.

So am I against legislation like the Civil Rights Act, the ADA, the social safety net, a progressive income tax, and all the other programs that help make the playing field a little less uneven? Of course not.  I'm just pointing out the potential dangers of taking it too far.  There is also another type of equality I think is preferable: equality of opportunity.  I didn't get a chance to really look into it in-depth, but an easy analogy is a running race, where everybody takes off from the same starting line. This picture sums up what I think is an optimal solution to work toward.

 So, that is kind of a long one.  I guess I was making up for taking such a long break.  Anyway, enjoy.

Another Israeli/Hezbollah War Brewing?

Okay, so I've been lax about posting new entries the last eleven days.  Sorry about that - life happens sometimes.  Anyway, I wanted to fire off a quick post about a Tweet that caught my attention earlier today.  Kudos to Sulome Anderson, a freelance (?) combat journalist, for catching this. 

I posted a pic of the Tweet because it's easier to show it than paraphrase it, but Sulome suggests it might be related to an increase in aggression toward Hezbollah forces in Syria.  Her contacts have mentioned that the US has taken a more confrontational stance toward Hezbollah forces in Syria, and some of them (her contacts) believe it's a signal that a war with Israel (with America's backing) may be coming.

So could this be a sign that something's brewing? Maybe. On one hand, if the Tweet is connected to elevated hostilities toward Hezbollah, it meshes neatly with one of Trump's main reasons for not certifying the JCPOA: Iran's sponsorship of Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations - which, although likely true, is not an issue the JCPOA covers, and thus not a valid reason for decertification.  Second, go read the official White House statement regarding the decertification; I just read it for the first time, and holy shit does it sound like Trump's making a case for war.  Third, the Israeli Defense Minister accused Hezbollah of deliberately firing rockets at the Golan Heights yesterday, but those accusations were later walked back. 

On the other hand, Trump's Tweet could be entirely about him carrying out one of his duties as Commander in Chief by remembering 241 fallen American service-members; or trying to salvage his reputation with the troops, military families, and veterans after the recent fiasco.  I don't believe the former scenario is plausible based on Trump's past conduct, but the latter one makes a bit of sense.  Trump isn't known for thinking ahead, either - meaning, sometimes a Tweet is just a Tweet.  He's also known for pushing decision-making authority down to his subordinate commanders; so the obvious question is, who is behind the increasingly hostile posture toward Hezbollah? Trump and the White House, or the ranking ground commander? Either answer is bad, but for different reasons.  If Trump is authorizing the hostility, it may be another sign he's itching for a war, somewhere/somehow.  If it's the ground commander, it's possible Trump doesn't know this is happening.

A lot of the signs of impending war are conjecture, I'll admit.  It's a pretty flimsy case, and Occam's Razor says that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one - which is that this is another one of Trump's random Tweets.  I think it's a situation worth keeping an eye on, though.

The Times, They Are A'Changing. . .

I want to start this post with a simple thought experiment, but before I do that, I want to mention an article I read earlier that inspired this post. This morning, I stumbled across an opinion piece by Leonard Pitts Jr articulating the direction he thinks the Democratic Party should take in response to  Donald Trump and the modern GOP.  That direction, in Pitts' opinion, should be a hard left.  I would probably mangle Pitts' main point if I tried paraphrasing it, so I will just quote directly from the article:

"What if Democrats were as bold and definitive as he, but for universal healthcare, sane immigration reform, a living wage, fixing the broken justice system, jobs training and day care for families on public assistance, addressing climate change, and not blowing up the world in manhood-measuring contests with Asian dictators? What if they were pugnacious and uncompromising in the service of simple decency? Of inclusion and compassion? Of just treating people right?"

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/leonard-pitts-jr/article178599721.html#storylink=cpy

Sounds more than a bit Bernie Sanders-ish, doesn't it? I'll come back to the quote later; now, let's perform that thought experiment.  Ask yourself a question: what do you think the founding fathers would do if we were somehow able to bring them to the present and give them the task of redesigning the government they had built? Do you think the government they would come up with would resemble the one they originally created? If so, how? Assume that we were somehow able to bring them up to date on the important events and advances that had happened in the roughly 250 years since they had founded the United States: the Civil War, the moon landing, the Great Depression, both World Wars, the Industrial Revolution, the Atomic Age, 9/11, the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, airplanes, the internet, radio and television, automobiles, antibiotics, the interstate highway system, and indoor plumbing. Those are the major ones I could remember off the top of my head.  I'm sure there are many others.

They say a picture is worth 1000 words, so let me also illustrate my point visually.  Here is the USS Constellation. The one on the left was commissioned in 1855; it still exists as a tourist attraction in Baltimore's Inner Harbor.  The one on the right was commissioned approximately 100 years later, and was retired in 2003.
 

Quite a difference a century (give or take a few years) makes, wouldn't you say? Circling back to my thought experiment, what do you think the founders would think if they saw this side-by-side comparison? This image is a microcosm of how the United States, and also a great part of the world, has changed since the day that the ink on the Constitution dried.

And that is the heart of the issue, right there. The founders championed the concept of small government, as one way of safeguarding individual liberty (another principle they championed quite heavily). Here are a couple quotes to reinforce that point.

"I own I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive." – Thomas Jefferson, Letter to James Madison, 1787

"Liberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood." – John Adams, 1765

The logic went that a small government would consist of fewer laws and regulations to stifle its citizens, and also lack the means to impose its will on them. There is certainly something to be said in support of that reasoning.  Let's use the National Security Agency as an example, because it's an obvious and important one. We all know from the Snowden documents that the NSA has been collecting and storing virtually all of our digital communications: phone calls, text messages, emails, social media posts - basically everything it could get its hands on. The NSA is "big government" in terms of its mission and capabilities, not really its size (it *probably* has fewer employees than the IRS, but more than the EPA), because its ability to access our digital communications is a very potent capability. Now, is the NSA a tool of oppression? As it stands now, not really. Five minutes ago, I Googled "How many employees does the NSA have?" so I could include a specific number in this blog post, before I decided I didn't need to. I'm not going to have some secret police agents show up at midnight because of that Google search, and to my knowledge no other American citizen has either. However, it's not difficult to imagine that it could happen some day (if you don't think it could, read up on Germany's history from 1920 to 1945), which is why the founders thought it was a good idea to remove the potential for such abuses of power, by keeping government small and also crafting a set of protections against oppressive government.

Now let's look at a more mundane category of big government: arbitrary and excessive regulations.  I've linked to a couple examples here, here, here, here, and here.  There are probably hundreds more out there.  Everybody has a story or a hundred about some frustrating and ridiculous government regulation in our everyday lives.  Want to start your own business? You'll probably need to get a few permits.  Want to build a garage on your property? You'll need permits for that too.  They rob us of hard-earned money and time, and the implication is often that we're not competent enough to run our own lives.  And more than that, they inhibit economic growth in a variety of ways.  Big government is also a self-reinforcing problem, since government agencies constantly look for ways to maintain and expand their mandates, so they can get bigger budgets year after year. And then, there's taxes, which are another source of irritation for a lot of people. (That's nothing new, remember the Boston Tea Party?)

So yes, a big, bloated government gets a lot of flack - which it deserves.  But here's the other side of it. Remember that picture of the two ships? Small governments don't build ships like that aircraft carrier. Small governments don't build cross-country interstates, air traffic control networks, university networks, or other things that help a country flourish. The concept of small government as it existed 200-some years ago is obsolete. No country that tried to operate that way would do well - there have been far too many significant technological changes.

In addition to technology, there's another key factor: population.  See the graph right above this? There are now approximately 320 million people in the United States. What do we do with them all? Those people need certain necessities to live: food & water, shelter, medicine, clothing. Forget everything else: cars, TVs, higher education (in fact, I'd like to see fewer people go to college; but that's another post in itself). People need the absolute basics so that they're not dying in the streets.  It's not just "unicorns and rainbows" generosity, either.  When enough people start having to go without, especially when they can remember better economic times, social unrest is just around the corner. There's a saying I've heard a few times that captures the concept pretty well: "Any society is only three meals away from revolution." So at minimum, the population needs to have safety nets in place to catch people who hit on hard times; and that falls on the government, since absolutely no other part of society has the resources or the responsibility to perform this task.  And if a country wants to do more than just get by, it needs to make investments in its citizens: quality education, health & disease prevention programs, environmental safety, and so on.

Of course, there are legitimate questions about limited resources and long-term costs. If the population keeps growing like it has, eventually it will break the bank or use up all the resources. It has to hit a peak sometime, because nothing can continue indefinitely. Then we're really in a bad spot. Certainly, we'll have to make some hard decisions in the future (maybe even the near future.)  But right now, I've got good reason to be skeptical of politicians raising those questions, because nearly all of them are not being honest about it.  The ACA, for example, was attacked because of its massive cost (among other reasons), but so far, efforts to dismantle or undo it have been shown to cost more than leaving it alone would have.  Also, recent proposed legislation included provisions that would have slashed tax revenue or tacked on billions in additional spending.  I have also heard very little about halting production on the F-35 program. These inconvenient facts make me question the urgency of "starving the beast." Maybe they're right, though. But I have trouble believing them when their priorities are so warped.

To circle back to my thought experiment from the beginning, I don't presume to know what the founding fathers would have done, because I could point to many primary sources that support my claim just as someone else could point to ones that refute it.  There are a lot of areas where big government has grown out of control, in potentially dangerous ways like the NSA's mass surveillance program, and in irritating ways like overzealous regulators and nonsensical rules.  But despite these drawbacks, Americans are still free in more ways than they are not, and the benefits we receive outweigh the costs.  Leonard Pitts' vision for the Democrats seems like a good one, one that will help America flourish.

Thoughts on North Korea

So. . .some recent news stories prompted me to write a military news-themed post - one of the main areas I had originally planned to focus on, before this blog went slightly off the rails.  But that's water under the bridge.  Now, before I dive into this post, I want to make a disclaimer.  My Army service gives me some insight into the military's planning and warfighting processes, but I'm hardly the Second Coming of General Patton.  Truth is, I only scratched a little bit below the surface when it comes to knowledge of those areas.  This is only a collection of somewhat educated guesses, so take them with a grain of salt.  Moving on to the main topic. . .

There have been a handful of news stories over the past two or three days reporting that North Korean hackers acquired a huge chunk of classified data from a South Korean government database, in the neighborhood of 235 gigabytes, last September.  South Korean officials aren't sure what North Korea acquired, but the stolen information reportedly includes joint American-South Korean war plans and proposals for decapitation strikes meant to assassinate Kim Jong Un. To me, that's incredibly important, since tensions remain high and President Trump seems hell-bent on locking the US into a war with North Korea.

I can't emphasize how much of an advantage this gives the North Korean military.  Let's use football as an analogy. When a team is trying to move the ball into the end zone, it generally has two options available: passing or running. Now, the team can develop any number of plays to run or pass the ball, but it essentially has two main options.  It might pull a trick play from time to time, but it won't base its entire offense on wacky strategies like (to take this idea to the absolute extreme) playing two quarterbacks simultaneously or using the kicker to move the ball downfield.

The same thing holds true for warfighting plans.  Any contingency plans the US military develops will share the same basic similarities, because that is just the reality of war.  For example, the military's options at the start of the conflict would be to charge across the DMZ or secure a foothold somewhere else in North Korea.  A frontal charge across the DMZ would incur a lot of casualties, because North Korea expects that and has rolled out countermeasures for it. We could - maybe - create an opening by conducting a massive aerial bombardment/artillery barrage, but I don't know how effective that would be.  It does have the option of letting the military assemble troops and supplies in a safer environment, though.  The other option would be securing a foothold somewhere in North Korea.  That option carries risks of its own.  But assuming it works, once the first wave of troops secures a foothold, it will need a way to deliver supplies, vehicles, additional troops, and other important items.  That means airstrips and/or deep-water ports are prime pieces of real estate, because ships and cargo aircraft are the best ways of transporting supplies in huge quantities.  Those are basically the military's only two options, and they both have pluses and minuses.  Then, if you start thinking about what the military needs in order to fight and win the war, while keeping the supply pipeline flowing, and it becomes clear how few options are really available.

There are also other limitations, such as the number of troops and quantities of supplies available (assembling an invasion force would mean pulling some troops out of somewhere else, such as western Europe or Afghanistan), and equipment capabilities and limitations (our tanks and aircraft are far superior than Korean War era ones; but those are evolutionary, not revolutionary, changes). Additionally, North Korea can correctly anticipate how the US and South Korea will fight based on joint exercises and how the US has fought in the past.  Whatever the US did at the start, a massive bombardment and/or artillery barrage would probably precede any ground assault.  That's just my prediction, but the US is kind of predictable.  There's also the fog of war: things tend to go wrong in unpredictable ways and at unpredictable times.

Long story short, the US is boxed in here.  Any new war plans it develops will be constrained by logistical, technological, and tactical limitations, to the point that they look a lot like the old war plans.  Creating wholly new war plans is unlikely, in my opinion, because there's a lot of painstaking, time-consuming, and possibly dangerous work involved.  And given Trump's unhelpful rhetoric, time might be in short supply.

Again, though, I'm hardly an expert military tactician; but this is just my $.02.

Criminal Justice Misconceptions in the United States

Everyone's probably heard that old saying about "Do the crime, do the time", right? If you could go back in time to ancient Rome, there were probably people saying it back then, in Latin or whatever they spoke back then.  And why not, right? The saying makes a lot of sense.  If you commit a criminal offense, be prepared to accept the punishment if you get caught.  I bought into it for a long time, approximately into my early 20s; and while I still stick by it to some degree, I figured out that it oversimplifies a complex equation.  Doing some independent learning and interacting with people from other walks of life helped me realize that it's it's not the simple cause-and-effect relationship I had believed it was.  Not everyone agrees, though - especially the "law and order" types - some of whom have a lot of misplaced faith in the system.  So I thought I'd dedicate this post to dispelling a few misconceptions.

The criminal justice process for a suspected criminal, from start to finish, has a lot of fragile points where things can go off the rails.  Maybe the police arrest the wrong person.  Maybe the jury doesn't know what it's doing.  Maybe the assigned public defender was overworked.  Maybe there was another problem that research shows doesn't work.  The point is that the process was created by people, is maintained by people, and relies on people to function.  Imperfect people, who get bored, stressed, petty, overconfident, nervous, forgetful, and so on.

Those are just the possible points of failure when steering an individual through the process, from investigation and arrest to trial to sentencing (if they're convicted) to incarceration.  Once you widen your gaze to look at the justice system as a whole, you start seeing a lot of other ways in which the "do the crime..." slogan gets muddled.  Let's start with this one: asking whether the crime in question should even be a crime.  Like consuming drugs.  Assuming someone doesn't do something reckless or harmful while under the influence, why should taking any drug be a crime? (Notice I said taking, not manufacturing or distribution; those are separate issues.)  A person who takes a mind-altering substance under safe conditions in the privacy of his or her own home should not face any repercussions.

There's also the issue of whether the punishment is proportional in relation to the crime.  Using drug-related crime again may be me being too lazy to think of a better example, but it is what it is.  The federal penalty for any amount of marijuana is up to a year in prison and a $1,000 fine - for the first offense.  The penalties go up for repeat offenses.  Again, I ask "why?" For the simple act of possession? I understand that deterrence plays a part, as in making the punishment hurt enough so a person's not tempted to commit a crime again, and I agree to some extent.  But we should be making sure first, that we're not punishing people for a victimless crime, and second, that the punishment doesn't go too far in the name of deterrence. The death penalty is a good example of excessive punishment as intended deterrence.  Its effectiveness as deterrence is still being debated, but I think I would still oppose it even if it was effective, simply because of its finality.  What happens if you execute an innocent person? That has happened alarmingly often, and even if the person being executed is not innocent, all of the current methods of execution are horrific and easily (in my opinion) qualify as "cruel and unusual punishment," which is prohibited by the Eighth Amendment.  I'm not saying this out of sympathy or pity for a confirmed murderer, by the way.  When someone who willingly and remorselessly took another person's life leaves this world, I don't feel too badly about it.  I'm more worried about what it says about our society that we allow gruesome and excruciatingly painful punishments on someone, even one whose guilt is indisputable and would likely kill again - even someone as vile as Jeffery Dahmer, for example.  Potassium chloride - the "lethal" component of a lethal injection - has been compared to being burned from the inside out, and it's sad that some states would rather switch to an untested mix of drugs than put a halt to executions.  What does that do to the person who has to carry out the execution? And what does that say about a government that sanctions it?

Another important thing to remember is that, depending on the crime, a punishment should be meted out with the possibility of reintegrating the criminal into society.  Obviously, some classes of criminals should be jailed indefinitely, or at least until they don't present a threat any longer.  Violent criminals come to mind.  But the rest should be treated in a way that doesn't transform them into hardened, lifelong criminals themselves.  Teach them skills, give them access to educational opportunities, let them keep one foot in civilization through things like video games, books, and other recreational aids.  That sounds like one of those "country club" prisons that catch so much flack, but it's really not.  It's for the benefit of several parties: the inmates, the guards, and society in general.

There's a lot more I could probably say on the subject of the criminal justice system, but I think I'll wrap it up here.  The bottom line is that the "eye for an eye, plus an extra measure" mentality is outdated, counterproductive, and needlessly cruel.  Unfortunately, as long as we have extreme "law and order" advocates occupying some of the highest posts in the country, nothing is likely to change.