I think that this is what annoys liberals the most about conservatives. It is the siege mentality. We are all very annoyed by the martyr complex or if you are me see it as being dangerous. In my mind, if tyranny comes to America it is going to be through that siege mentality from the right. Not bike paths in Denver. It is hard to have a constructive debate with someone who feels like the person you mentioned does. There is no anchor in reality.
"Every time I think about the gun control debate I ask myself one question. What is the ultimate outcome that is wanted from gun control?"
Fewer guns. Hopefully eventually, a society that does not considered concealed carry a good idea. Does not make countless arguments that are easily refuted about "What if someone was armed?" every time a massacre happens.
These are all valid concerns. But I was not really thinking of full institutionalization a la One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. How about an army of social workers to help people along. Did you ever read Million Dollar Murray by Malcolm Gladwell. It would have been cheaper to give Murray, a full-time nurse/social worker than all his visits to the ER and drying him out. The social worker/nurse seemed to work as well. Why is the full time social worker such a bad idea?
You see a lot of mentally ill people in San Francisco. You also see a lot of non-confronting eccentrics. They mentall-ill have their good days and bad days. There is one guy on my bus route. Once he just told me the various delusions he suffers under from his paranoid-schizophrenia. They involved the SF Park Rangers using the De Young Museum to summon 500 year old Nazi Demons into this world. He also strongly implied that he was tortured badly by these Nazi-Demons because he is the only person who can see them. The other time I saw him, he was in such a bad state that people left the bus early and two women asked me to walk with them for a bit because he got off and was walking up the street as well.
There have been other people with mental illness acting up on the bus to the point where everyone stood far away.
The false positive issue is a tricky one. Most people would at least say* that it is better for a guilty person to go free than lock up an innocent person. The same I suppose is true for mental illness. Though it still seems like we are not doing enough to give even voluntary mental health access or make it affordable.
*Whether people really believe this is up for debate in my opinion. I'm doubtful. Americans seem to have settled on mass incarceration to solve our societal ills. I do not think ending the drug war will solve the mass incarceration crisis. There is a tendency among both liberals and conservatives to want to jail people who commit certain acts for a long time. These are often different acts though. I am afraid that the compromise we have reached is that conservatives get long jail sentences for their preferred crimes and liberals get long jail sentences for their preferred crimes.
"So less Buffy, more Elementary? I think this is why I love Dr. Who."
Ignoring the fact that these are all just shows with strong cult* followings probably. I have never seen Elementary but would not mind a culture that held up the Doctor as being stronger than any badass character. Same with his companions.
*The internet makes geek culture seem like it is the dominant market right now but the truth is that the Internet just gives people a stronger sense of community. Geek culture is certainly more of a money maker than it ever was but Joss Whedon is still very much a cult figure. He will not be the next Spielberg or even Lucas or Jackson.
It seems like many on the right and/or many libertarians are against more mental health access/care because it will possibly or probably mean more government spending and big government. This is not something private markets and charities can do alone.
The status quo here is untenable and immoral. Right now we seem to use the prison and criminal justice system to house our long-term mentally ill. We wait until they commit a bad enough crime, deem them sane enough to handle a trial, and then just lock them up for the rest of their lives or decades in prison. This is probably more costly than more mental health access. It is also immoral to those who were the victims of crimes and the mentally ill themselves. This is not a just policy and it should be one that any democracy is ashamed of.
A week or two ago another man was pushed to his death while waiting for a subway train. In no surprise she had a history of mental health issues, attacking other people because of insane delusions (though with less deadly results), and not being supervised enough to take her medications.
Why is it good for a society to let a person who might be permanently mentally ill just sit around like a ticking time bomb until something really bad happens? At that point we just shutter said person off to prison and talk about free will. The mentally ill person did not have free will to commit his or her crime. They committed because of insane delusions beyond his or her control. The reason so many people with mental illnesses are also alcohol abusers is because that is a "self-medication" that they can afford over their drugs.
This seems to be largely about culture. As far as I can tell, we are roughly the same age but you might be slightly older. We grew up in roughly the same socio-economic status.
The big difference being geography. You grew up in a part of the United States where gun ownership and hunting seem to be common activities and I did not. I did not know anyone who hunted growing up. Anyone who talked about guns. I might not have even known anyone who owned guns. So the contempt I hear goes the other way. It is the contempt for liberals, urbanites (who have very different policy concerns and needs than rural and exurban dwellers), intellectuals and other members of the vague but not really elite.
This might be America's never ending problem. A country divided by urban and rural geography that creates different policy needs and wants and each side feeling contempt towards the other.
Most of the mass shootings we have seen in the United States have been very culutrally homogeneous. Do any of the big mass shooting stories from this year have racial violence as a possible motivator?
I know all of this. I was merely pointing out that Mad Rocket Scientist was being very misleading in his framing. I should have done this in an independent post and not as a reply to you. His post makes Norway look like a gun-friendly country. It is not.
I don't think the issue is necessarily that popular culture is violent but for a while we have been attracted to the vigilante, the anti-hero, the Walter Whites off the world. We have produced a culture that associates violence with strength/empowerment and also being sexy/confident.
I notice this even among my very liberal friends. A while ago, a few of them were passing around a Joss Whedon quote. Joss was allegedly asked "Why do you make strong female characters?" His answer was "because I keep getting asked this question." But what makes a Joss Whedon character strong? She often uses violence to fight the big bad a la Buffy. Why do we associate being able to use violence with being strong? Can you see American culture producing a movie that argues someone is strong because they choose to ignore bullies and not do quid-pro-quo violence?
Also, people think guns = sexy. Even my very liberal and very pro gun control friends have thoughts about how carrying around a gun like a character in an action movie will make them sexy. I seem to be alone in my undesire to ever fire a gun or not feel cool by wanting to imitate a bullet ballet from an action movie.
Traditionally you are right. Teenage boys were always the prime moviegoers especially those without girlfriends. This has been true since the 1930s if I am remembering my film history class correctly.
Also Norway does not have the gun culture or an organization like the NRS. The call for discussion was a call for more peace and tolerance and a resistance to hate groups and hate thinkers like Anders Brevik.
Let's change that to peaceful civilians. I agree with you on Kent State and Wounded Knee (lawful protest) but not Ruby Ridge and Waco. Those were people resisting investigation and/or arrest and were willing to let their family members and innocents be human shields to make the government look bad.
"In addition to intervention’s potential unforeseen negative consequences, which you concede – when you don’t have a clear path forward to improvement, yet are trying to “mend” anyway – aren’t you diverting your “mending” resources away from the things that *can* be mended?"
Just because I think we need to do something does not mean I think we need to always do something right away. Gun Control might need to be a longer process. However, change needs to come faster than at a speed that makes the more conservative members of society happy. As I said before here, civil rights cannot come at a speed that makes the reactionary at ease.
Libertarians can appreciate this is we were talking about ubber and taxi cabs. The current medallion laws favor the entrenched interests that libertarians despise and I am sure they want to move swiftly on repealing those. Here the entrenched interest of do nothing favors the gun owners and the gun lobby. This is a very white, male, rural interest for the most part and not one that benefits all. Do Nothing arguments often seem to benefit the older, white male interest.
"In the absence of a compelling likelihood that you’re going to make anything better via an intervention, it’s hard to make a case that you should do anything."
As I have mentioned in other posts, this attitude is sort of alien and a bit incomprehensible to me. It goes counter to the notion of Tikkun Olam ("to mend the world") I will admit that intervention can make things worse and one should think about consequences. However, I don't think one should accept incidents like Newton as being unpreventable or inevitable. That is an inherently fatalistic and pre-destined attitude that I cannot and do not accept. There was a story on NPR a few years ago about various ministers responding to the Thai Tsunami and they were talking about a small child who died. The Protestant Minister said that the Tsunami and the child's death were God's Will and meant to happen. The Rabbi said bullshit. I'm with the rabbi. Even if we were suppose that a horrible event like Newton was God's will, what is the purpose? Perhaps instead of believing that it is to punish us for original sin, it is better to encourage action and prevention of violence and massacre.
I do not know whether you are religious or not but my guess based on your name is that your background is Irish-Catholic. I am not a super religious person, nor was I raised in a very religious household. However, Judaism is a materialist religion and the primary concern is making life in this world better and more compassionate and I find that this shapes my philosophy and politics. In general, I find the same is true for secular people who come from backgrounds where the religion or culture is more fatalistic and non-Materialist. There is something about the long chain of history that influences his or her world view. He or she might have been raised in a secular household but the Calvinism or Catholic fatalism stuck around.
"(both to the potentially impacted, economically speaking, and from a liberty standpoint)."
I suppose this involves getting into a debate about what is liberty and what rights are necessary or not for a truly free society (excluding absolute anarchy which is untenable). This is something where liberals, conservatives, libertarians, moderates are bound to be looked in perpetual disagreement.
"However, we’ve done a bunch of those interventions in California and we haven’t seen a particularly awesome drop (or increase) in violent crime that can’t be more readily explained by other factors. So they’re unlikely to help, and thus I don’t think it’s a case where federal intervention is required."
I suppose this becomes a question of epistomology and doubt and like so many of those questions people default to their preferred ideological stance. We saw this in the community last week. Roger argued that the laws against child labor were unnecessary because the market eventually made child labor inefficient and unnecessary. LWA argued that it was the laws prohibiting child labor that caused the market to become more efficient and was frustrated that Roger could not see this. I imagine the same default would play out here. Gun Control advocates are going to argue that the regulations led to a decrease in crime and those opposed to gun control would argue the other way around. I am getting rather tired of these debates but it seems to be the Human Condition even if it makes me want to move to a Chalet in the Swiss Alps with a large pile of books and Maggie Gyllenhaal to keep me company.
"Thus, almost all of the below should be up to the states to establish. This means if you want to live in Alaska and everybody in Alaska wants common concealed carry, you pretty much have to put up with it."
This I can agree with as long as bluer states can get their stricter regulations like no concealed carry without the NRA going bonkers. Though this shows the inherit sham of Federalism. Everyone is for states' rights when it supports their side and against states' rights when it does not. The true believer in states' rights would argue that Texas and Alaska get their rights to concealed carry while blue California can enact her bleeding heart liberal laws. In truth, very few people (if anyone) does this.
"2. Why does it matter that the Klansman sherrif was a Democrat?"
Because in the minds of the right-wing, the Democratic Party will always be the party of Jeff Davis and the Republican Party will always be the party of Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt. Never mind that the electoral college map is reversed. That is a pesky reality based community concern.
He was "lucky". The scare quotes are on purpose. The truth is that institutionalized racism prevents this sort of thing. During the initial Trayvon Martin media coverage, there were a lot of stories about African-Americans being denied the right to assert defense based on Stand Your Ground.
On “One Sensible Step At A Time”
I think that this is what annoys liberals the most about conservatives. It is the siege mentality. We are all very annoyed by the martyr complex or if you are me see it as being dangerous. In my mind, if tyranny comes to America it is going to be through that siege mentality from the right. Not bike paths in Denver. It is hard to have a constructive debate with someone who feels like the person you mentioned does. There is no anchor in reality.
"
"Every time I think about the gun control debate I ask myself one question. What is the ultimate outcome that is wanted from gun control?"
Fewer guns. Hopefully eventually, a society that does not considered concealed carry a good idea. Does not make countless arguments that are easily refuted about "What if someone was armed?" every time a massacre happens.
On “Insufficient Arguments”
These are all valid concerns. But I was not really thinking of full institutionalization a la One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. How about an army of social workers to help people along. Did you ever read Million Dollar Murray by Malcolm Gladwell. It would have been cheaper to give Murray, a full-time nurse/social worker than all his visits to the ER and drying him out. The social worker/nurse seemed to work as well. Why is the full time social worker such a bad idea?
http://www.gladwell.com/2006/2006_02_13_a_murray.html
You see a lot of mentally ill people in San Francisco. You also see a lot of non-confronting eccentrics. They mentall-ill have their good days and bad days. There is one guy on my bus route. Once he just told me the various delusions he suffers under from his paranoid-schizophrenia. They involved the SF Park Rangers using the De Young Museum to summon 500 year old Nazi Demons into this world. He also strongly implied that he was tortured badly by these Nazi-Demons because he is the only person who can see them. The other time I saw him, he was in such a bad state that people left the bus early and two women asked me to walk with them for a bit because he got off and was walking up the street as well.
There have been other people with mental illness acting up on the bus to the point where everyone stood far away.
The false positive issue is a tricky one. Most people would at least say* that it is better for a guilty person to go free than lock up an innocent person. The same I suppose is true for mental illness. Though it still seems like we are not doing enough to give even voluntary mental health access or make it affordable.
*Whether people really believe this is up for debate in my opinion. I'm doubtful. Americans seem to have settled on mass incarceration to solve our societal ills. I do not think ending the drug war will solve the mass incarceration crisis. There is a tendency among both liberals and conservatives to want to jail people who commit certain acts for a long time. These are often different acts though. I am afraid that the compromise we have reached is that conservatives get long jail sentences for their preferred crimes and liberals get long jail sentences for their preferred crimes.
On “Fictional Gun Violence and Mass Gun Killings”
"So less Buffy, more Elementary? I think this is why I love Dr. Who."
Ignoring the fact that these are all just shows with strong cult* followings probably. I have never seen Elementary but would not mind a culture that held up the Doctor as being stronger than any badass character. Same with his companions.
*The internet makes geek culture seem like it is the dominant market right now but the truth is that the Internet just gives people a stronger sense of community. Geek culture is certainly more of a money maker than it ever was but Joss Whedon is still very much a cult figure. He will not be the next Spielberg or even Lucas or Jackson.
On “Insufficient Arguments”
Some more thoughts on mental health access.
It seems like many on the right and/or many libertarians are against more mental health access/care because it will possibly or probably mean more government spending and big government. This is not something private markets and charities can do alone.
The status quo here is untenable and immoral. Right now we seem to use the prison and criminal justice system to house our long-term mentally ill. We wait until they commit a bad enough crime, deem them sane enough to handle a trial, and then just lock them up for the rest of their lives or decades in prison. This is probably more costly than more mental health access. It is also immoral to those who were the victims of crimes and the mentally ill themselves. This is not a just policy and it should be one that any democracy is ashamed of.
A week or two ago another man was pushed to his death while waiting for a subway train. In no surprise she had a history of mental health issues, attacking other people because of insane delusions (though with less deadly results), and not being supervised enough to take her medications.
Why is it good for a society to let a person who might be permanently mentally ill just sit around like a ticking time bomb until something really bad happens? At that point we just shutter said person off to prison and talk about free will. The mentally ill person did not have free will to commit his or her crime. They committed because of insane delusions beyond his or her control. The reason so many people with mental illnesses are also alcohol abusers is because that is a "self-medication" that they can afford over their drugs.
But hey, such is the price for freedom.
On “One Sensible Step At A Time”
This seems to be largely about culture. As far as I can tell, we are roughly the same age but you might be slightly older. We grew up in roughly the same socio-economic status.
The big difference being geography. You grew up in a part of the United States where gun ownership and hunting seem to be common activities and I did not. I did not know anyone who hunted growing up. Anyone who talked about guns. I might not have even known anyone who owned guns. So the contempt I hear goes the other way. It is the contempt for liberals, urbanites (who have very different policy concerns and needs than rural and exurban dwellers), intellectuals and other members of the vague but not really elite.
This might be America's never ending problem. A country divided by urban and rural geography that creates different policy needs and wants and each side feeling contempt towards the other.
On “Insufficient Arguments”
Just because something is easier said than done does not mean we shouldn't try to do it.
On “The Perfect is the Enemy of the Good”
Most of the mass shootings we have seen in the United States have been very culutrally homogeneous. Do any of the big mass shooting stories from this year have racial violence as a possible motivator?
"
I know all of this. I was merely pointing out that Mad Rocket Scientist was being very misleading in his framing. I should have done this in an independent post and not as a reply to you. His post makes Norway look like a gun-friendly country. It is not.
On “Fictional Gun Violence and Mass Gun Killings”
Why should that matter? Either way it is a problem.
"
Great post and I largely agree.
I don't think the issue is necessarily that popular culture is violent but for a while we have been attracted to the vigilante, the anti-hero, the Walter Whites off the world. We have produced a culture that associates violence with strength/empowerment and also being sexy/confident.
I notice this even among my very liberal friends. A while ago, a few of them were passing around a Joss Whedon quote. Joss was allegedly asked "Why do you make strong female characters?" His answer was "because I keep getting asked this question." But what makes a Joss Whedon character strong? She often uses violence to fight the big bad a la Buffy. Why do we associate being able to use violence with being strong? Can you see American culture producing a movie that argues someone is strong because they choose to ignore bullies and not do quid-pro-quo violence?
Also, people think guns = sexy. Even my very liberal and very pro gun control friends have thoughts about how carrying around a gun like a character in an action movie will make them sexy. I seem to be alone in my undesire to ever fire a gun or not feel cool by wanting to imitate a bullet ballet from an action movie.
"
Traditionally you are right. Teenage boys were always the prime moviegoers especially those without girlfriends. This has been true since the 1930s if I am remembering my film history class correctly.
The second part is new probably but I agree.
On “The Perfect is the Enemy of the Good”
Also Norway does not have the gun culture or an organization like the NRS. The call for discussion was a call for more peace and tolerance and a resistance to hate groups and hate thinkers like Anders Brevik.
On “The Doomsday Provision”
Let's change that to peaceful civilians. I agree with you on Kent State and Wounded Knee (lawful protest) but not Ruby Ridge and Waco. Those were people resisting investigation and/or arrest and were willing to let their family members and innocents be human shields to make the government look bad.
On “The Perfect is the Enemy of the Good”
"A conservative is someone who sits and thinks. Mainly sits."-Woodrow Wilson
On “Insufficient Arguments”
Also sometimes full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes is the best solution. Sometimes action needs to be swift.
"
"In addition to intervention’s potential unforeseen negative consequences, which you concede – when you don’t have a clear path forward to improvement, yet are trying to “mend” anyway – aren’t you diverting your “mending” resources away from the things that *can* be mended?"
Just because I think we need to do something does not mean I think we need to always do something right away. Gun Control might need to be a longer process. However, change needs to come faster than at a speed that makes the more conservative members of society happy. As I said before here, civil rights cannot come at a speed that makes the reactionary at ease.
Libertarians can appreciate this is we were talking about ubber and taxi cabs. The current medallion laws favor the entrenched interests that libertarians despise and I am sure they want to move swiftly on repealing those. Here the entrenched interest of do nothing favors the gun owners and the gun lobby. This is a very white, male, rural interest for the most part and not one that benefits all. Do Nothing arguments often seem to benefit the older, white male interest.
"
I'm going with you.
"
"In the absence of a compelling likelihood that you’re going to make anything better via an intervention, it’s hard to make a case that you should do anything."
As I have mentioned in other posts, this attitude is sort of alien and a bit incomprehensible to me. It goes counter to the notion of Tikkun Olam ("to mend the world") I will admit that intervention can make things worse and one should think about consequences. However, I don't think one should accept incidents like Newton as being unpreventable or inevitable. That is an inherently fatalistic and pre-destined attitude that I cannot and do not accept. There was a story on NPR a few years ago about various ministers responding to the Thai Tsunami and they were talking about a small child who died. The Protestant Minister said that the Tsunami and the child's death were God's Will and meant to happen. The Rabbi said bullshit. I'm with the rabbi. Even if we were suppose that a horrible event like Newton was God's will, what is the purpose? Perhaps instead of believing that it is to punish us for original sin, it is better to encourage action and prevention of violence and massacre.
I do not know whether you are religious or not but my guess based on your name is that your background is Irish-Catholic. I am not a super religious person, nor was I raised in a very religious household. However, Judaism is a materialist religion and the primary concern is making life in this world better and more compassionate and I find that this shapes my philosophy and politics. In general, I find the same is true for secular people who come from backgrounds where the religion or culture is more fatalistic and non-Materialist. There is something about the long chain of history that influences his or her world view. He or she might have been raised in a secular household but the Calvinism or Catholic fatalism stuck around.
"(both to the potentially impacted, economically speaking, and from a liberty standpoint)."
I suppose this involves getting into a debate about what is liberty and what rights are necessary or not for a truly free society (excluding absolute anarchy which is untenable). This is something where liberals, conservatives, libertarians, moderates are bound to be looked in perpetual disagreement.
"However, we’ve done a bunch of those interventions in California and we haven’t seen a particularly awesome drop (or increase) in violent crime that can’t be more readily explained by other factors. So they’re unlikely to help, and thus I don’t think it’s a case where federal intervention is required."
I suppose this becomes a question of epistomology and doubt and like so many of those questions people default to their preferred ideological stance. We saw this in the community last week. Roger argued that the laws against child labor were unnecessary because the market eventually made child labor inefficient and unnecessary. LWA argued that it was the laws prohibiting child labor that caused the market to become more efficient and was frustrated that Roger could not see this. I imagine the same default would play out here. Gun Control advocates are going to argue that the regulations led to a decrease in crime and those opposed to gun control would argue the other way around. I am getting rather tired of these debates but it seems to be the Human Condition even if it makes me want to move to a Chalet in the Swiss Alps with a large pile of books and Maggie Gyllenhaal to keep me company.
"Thus, almost all of the below should be up to the states to establish. This means if you want to live in Alaska and everybody in Alaska wants common concealed carry, you pretty much have to put up with it."
This I can agree with as long as bluer states can get their stricter regulations like no concealed carry without the NRA going bonkers. Though this shows the inherit sham of Federalism. Everyone is for states' rights when it supports their side and against states' rights when it does not. The true believer in states' rights would argue that Texas and Alaska get their rights to concealed carry while blue California can enact her bleeding heart liberal laws. In truth, very few people (if anyone) does this.
"
So big wet blanker who finds no argument from either side compelling.
What would you do? Where do you stand?
On “The Doomsday Provision”
"2. Why does it matter that the Klansman sherrif was a Democrat?"
Because in the minds of the right-wing, the Democratic Party will always be the party of Jeff Davis and the Republican Party will always be the party of Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt. Never mind that the electoral college map is reversed. That is a pesky reality based community concern.
"
He was "lucky". The scare quotes are on purpose. The truth is that institutionalized racism prevents this sort of thing. During the initial Trayvon Martin media coverage, there were a lot of stories about African-Americans being denied the right to assert defense based on Stand Your Ground.
"
Agreed
"
This is a famous case you might or might not know about:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ossian_Sweet
"
Jaybird,
That depends on your poisons and kinks.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.