Honest Talk About Gun Control.

Every time it happens, the radicals on both sides of the gun control issue come out of the woodwork.  The anti-gun folks go on the offensive and the pro-gun people gird up the defense.  If…if…we can somehow move to the center, there is much that can likely be agreed to. 

The President has the bully pulpit, and therefore the opportunity, to put together a group that can try to address this gun issue in a rational, responsible, and sane fashion.  It needs to be comprised of reasonable people from all sides of the argument; professional people who first know what they are talking about and secondly, can understand the threat of unintended consequences of actions taken in haste and without forethought.  The group needs to include a couple of legislative aides from Congress who can assist them in putting their findings in some type of legal context;  ready to be taken up by the Senate and House.  Oh…and the group needs to have the authority to put anyone who wants to behave as a radical idiot out of the room.

We all need to agree on some clear definitions.  Most of the public hears assault weapon and thinks machine gun.  We need to ditch both terms.  There are automatic and semi-automatic weapons.  Just because an AR-15 looks like something GI Joe carries, that doesn’t make it an assault weapon.  There are a lot of four and six cylinder cars out there that look fast sitting still; but can be outrun by a hopped-up moped.  The AR-15 is semi-automatic, only shoots once per trigger pull, sells like hotcakes because it looks badass, and can’t generate any more fire than my Winchester Model 94 lever action in the hands a capable marksman.  An automatic weapon, on the other hand, will shoot continuously as long as the trigger is depressed.  It is hard to see a place for this type of gun in our civilian population.  There are many civilian applications for a semi-automatic weapon.

Gun control laws alone are not the answer.  Crime statistics clearly show that some of the areas (Chicago, WDC…looking at you) with the strictest gun laws have some of the highest incidence of gun violence.  Good, well considered gun laws are appropriate; but gun laws by themselves cannot solve the complicated problems of gun violence.  Some think that a greater quantity of and more restrictive gun laws are the panacea to this problem; some would tolerate no restrictions on gun ownership whatsoever.  The reasonable position is somewhere in between.  It is true that someone must pull the trigger in order for a firearm to kill.   It is also true that there are people who should never put their hands on a firearm.  The common argument that “if they didn’t have a gun, they would have used something else to kill” may be valid, but there is no denying that most of us would rather face off against a maniac with a Louisville Slugger than a maniac with a 30-06 rifle.   People with evil intent will find a way to harm.  But as long as firearms continue to be their occasional weapon of choice; we need to figure out a better way to keep firearms out of the hands of these people.

There must be recognition that there are different needs for different types of firearms.  As mentioned before, it is very hard to envision a need for automatic weapons in the civilian population.  However, it is insane to expect our law enforcement personnel to do battle holding only semi-automatic weapons while criminals are wielding automatics.  Of course, we want our military to have state of the art firearms that are the most efficient available.  There are whole classes of security personnel whose special weaponry needs should be addressed.  Who should be allowed to own what kind of firearm is a big part of this issue. 

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.  So reads the Second Amendment.  You can wordsmith it any way you like; it will not be undone.  Each of us has a right to bear arms in the defense of ourselves, our families, and our freedoms.  That is never going to change.  Now the type of arms that we, the People, can bear is certainly up for discussion.  But anyone…anyone…who honestly believes that our government could compel its citizens to voluntarily surrender their arms is living in a fantasy world that far exceeds even the most sophisticated video game out there.  Consider for a moment that if Congress and the President were to pass some type of law that involved confiscation of existing arms; how on earth would they ever even begin to enforce such a law?  The Second Amendment comes about as close to the stone tablet analogy as anything out there.

Many of the anti-gun control crowd take the position that many of the less restrictive proposals presented by the pro folks are the equivalent of the camel getting its nose under the tent.  Its goes without saying that the entire camel will follow the nose.  For instance, some would say that if gun owners were required to register all of the firearms and report all transactions involving those arms, then that is simply laying the groundwork for the government to know where to go when they are ready to confiscate the arms.  As I mentioned earlier, I think confiscation is about as far-fetched as (insert your own simile).  But, any person who does not harbor some reservation about giving our government new and broad authorities over our personal liberties is naïve to the extreme.  Any new law relating to firearm registration and tracking is fraught with the possibility of evolving into something far more restrictive than was ever intended.  This is one area of the gun control discussion where middle ground will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to achieve. 

Registration aside, there is a large area between the gun control factions that is fertile ground for agreement.  Background checks, limits on the size of clips and magazines, outlawing certain accessories and modifications (bumpstocks), specific ownership restrictions for unstable individuals, and the distinction between types of weapons that has been previously mentioned; these are all items where compromise should be reachable by reasonable people. 

Something needs to be done.  Not something that is shallow and not carefully considered.  Not something to serve a political agenda.  Not something that violates the fundamental rights of every American citizen.  But the citizenry of our country is largely ignorant when it comes to firearms, the mechanics of firearm science, and the existing laws pertaining to firearms.  Somebody… somewhere…somehow… needs to stand up and become the voice of reason in this debate.  The publicity surrounding mass shootings has become such that the public outrage demands that, at a minimum, our Government recognizes the problem that exists about how we as people handle our arms.  The President is correct in saying that the one common thread running through these episodes is mental instability.  That must be addressed.  But there just as clearly needs to be a reconsideration of our gun laws and how they are administered.  

The FISA Question No One is Asking.

I am intrigued by the absence of a question.  In all of this FISA discussion, there has been much ado about whether or not the security benefits of the program exceed the loss of personal liberties that an abuse of the system might entail.  There are smart and sincere people on both sides of the issue and each bring very good concerns to the fore.

The ticklish area of FISA, as I understand it, is not when the DOJ/FBI want to monitor the phone conversations and other communications of non-US citizens; it is when a US citizen gets caught up in the surveillance web by communicating with a non-citizen.  This is when we get into the sticky wickets of unmasking individual identities, expanding surveillance based on conversational content, and broadening out the scope of Big Brother’s peepshow tendencies. 

The proponents of FISA set forth that the danger of this intrusive, and possibly abusive, overreach is effectively eliminated by the need for the snooping party to obtain a warrant from a FISA judge in order to include a US citizen in the effort.  And, as I understand it, the threshold for obtaining this warrant is very high; requiring essentially the evidence of clear wrongdoing in the legal environments.  If one is to believe what the FISA proponents espouse, the program has been quite effective, perhaps to the point of being essential, to this nation’s anti-terrorism efforts.  If one is to believe the FISA opponents, the system is overly broad, too susceptible to abuse by unprincipled participants on the administrative end, and is a weapon too powerful to be placed in the hands of government.

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In the current episode that is unfolding, it seems obvious that there were some bad characters in the DOJ/FBI that abused their FISA privileges in an effort to further their preferred agenda and possibly influence the past presidential election.  The paper trail that is now being slowly exposed may one day reveal exactly where the system failed and how it was subjected to such misuse by these people.  But for the present, is it not alarming that the system remains in place, as it was before and during said abuse, and is clearly open to continued abuse of this nature?   Shouldn’t we find it troubling that both Parties have just recently extended the program without much transparency or public discussion?  Isn’t it just a bit disconcerting to find out through the accounts of the current FISAGate episode exactly how vulnerable each and every one of us is to the Orwellian desires of our government?  And for me, here is the clincher.  Here is the one question I am truly anxious to hear the answer to….

The system was supposed to have adequate safeguards built in to protect US citizens from unlawful violations of civil liberties.  It is reasonable to accept that for all of the safeguards that might be in place, it is impossible to guarantee the integrity and honor of the individuals who administer the program.  But even in the (hopefully) rare occurrence where an individual or a group of individuals figure out a scheme to use the FISA program in an abusive fashion, there is always the ultimate firewall; there is the pure and sacrosanct, beyond suspicion, almighty and all-knowing FISA Judge, without whose consent a warrant cannot be approved and the spying on a US citizen cannot occur.   This, claims the FISA proponents, is why we can afford to surrender a significant portion of our personal freedom in order to obtain additional security from those who would harm us as a nation and as a people.  But if this firewall of imperial FISA Judges is so damn smart…and so damn pure…and so damn ethical…and so damn reliable, then how in the devil did a bunch of yahoos like Sidney Blumenthal, Cody Shearer, Christopher Steele, James Clapper, John Brennan, Sally Yates, Rod Rosenstein, James Comey, Susan Rice, Samantha Power, and Ben Rhodes get multiple FISA warrants issued based on transparently thin and partisan suppositions?  Who are these Judges and where did they come from?  

The Stench is Becoming Palpable.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the Obama Administration, through its partisan supporters in the FBI and DOJ, and in cooperation with the DNC and Hillary Clinton Campaign, improperly used the FISA surveillance system to spy on and violate the privacy rights of the Trump Campaign, the President Trump Administration, and many individuals associated with them, both closely and tangentially.  The exposure of wrongdoing is so apparent, blatant, and supported by factual data that it is a disgrace to view the way it being reported by the mainstream media in this country.

Even people like myself, who have not been fans of Obama, are literally shocked by the arrogance, brazen ambition, and disregard for law that has been exhibited by a sitting President and his minions.  This is the kind of stuff that one expects to occur in Russia…or China…or some South American country that is bordering on dictatorship.  Read for yourself @ http://www.nationalreview.com/article/456287/grassley-graham-memo-affirms-nunes-memo-fisa-steele-dossier .  Read anywhere and anyone you like.  The facts are out there.  It is not a liberal thing or a conservative thing anymore.  It is pure and unadulterated lust for power and the sacrifice of honor to achieve it.

Now I have no doubt that there is sufficient insulation, absence of paper trail and communications trace, and incontrovertibly plausible deniability to separate Obama from the doings of his FBI and DOJ.  But if you believe that President Barack Obama had no knowledge of the Hillary Clinton Classified Data Investigation and FISAGate, then you possess more naiveté than a newborn babe in the cradle.  Whether it be Democrat or Republican, serious s&*# does not take place in the Executive Branch of Government without the President knowing about it.  As The One himself might say…I guarantee it.  Full stop.

I have been thinking for weeks now that at some point in this unfolding and depressing drama, a voice from the Democratic Party would emerge and condemn Obama and all of those he has enabled in this nefarious enterprise as the despicable characters that they are.  That voice has yet to be heard.   Simultaneously, I have been fervently hoping that the NYT or the WP might shock us all to enlightenment by bursting on the scene with a front page, above the fold, expose of all the ESTABLISHED FACTS in this unprecedented case of Executive abuse.  That print has not occurred.  In both cases, I must admit to a feeling of…not anger, not partisan pique, not journalistic objection; but of simply disillusionment.

As rabid a “rah rah for Trump” cheerleader as Fox News can be, they are a damn sight closer to the center than are CNN, MSNBC, and the other main venues of the mainstream media.  I honestly and sincerely held out hope…I really did…that the NYT or the WP might somehow find their way back to some semblance of journalistic integrity and self-respect and crawl out of this ever-widening and deepening anti-Trump abyss that they have been sucked into.  Now more than ever, our nation desperately needs a healthy and robust Fourth Estate to pull back the sheets on what has become a government and media culture that is simply out of control and free from any ethical inhibitions.

The intransigence exhibited by the Democrats and the mainstream media in continuing to ignore the obvious rot of the Obama/Clinton cabal may be giving them a “feel good moment”  for the time being; but those chickens will be coming home to roost in the not too distant future.  The Democrats and their media cohorts are now no different than these entertainment industry award shows and events where everyone is flitting around inside a glitzy bubble, speaking in circular fashion to each other, and oblivious to exactly how very out of touch with reality they are.  After having so obviously and irresponsibly abdicated their primary duties and functions in the defense of Hillary and Obama, do they honestly think that once their Party resumes power and majority status, they can simply erase the current morass from history and return to the fairy tale neverland of liberal thought?  

Yes, history has shown that the memory of the American people is short and selective.  We all choose to recall that which serves our agenda and our purposes, while ignoring the facts that we find…inconvenient.   But this time around…this rancid hubris that serves private ambition with a blind devotion; it is hard to fathom how this type of behavior can be airbrushed from the pages of the past.  It is really becoming increasingly difficult to see a way out of this political dysfunction that we find ourselves in.  I suppose that if Mr. Mueller were to soon close up his shop and disappear quietly, with a perfunctory indictment or two in hand…and if the rotten and corrupted individuals from the prior Administration are effectively removed from power, held to account, and exposed for what they are…and the President could somehow shut his mouth, lose his phone, and focus entirely on being the Chief Executive…and the media, all of the media,  could return to a coverage of facts as opposed to the promotion of an agenda…then perhaps our political equilibrium could begin to stabilize and move back towards a center position.  Who knows; it might not even take all of these things, but just one or two to return some semblance of sanity to our civil affairs.  But if a duly-elected President and his Administration can pull off the kind of disgrace that Obama has, and get away with it without consequence through the cover of deceit, denial, and media complicity; then there is little hope for a future government with any conscience whatsoever.   The stench is becoming palpable, but I suppose we can get used to anything…Can’t we?

The Sometimes Tragedy of When Ambition Comes to Fruition.

Wayne Gretzky dreamed of someday hoisting the Stanley Cup.  Willie Mays, in his youth, dreamed of making a great over-the-shoulder catch in a big game someday.  Tom Brady played in his backyard, pretending to take the snap in the final consequential moments of a future Super Bowl.  You have to know that Michael Jordan spent hours and hours shooting solo at a hoop while visions of NBA greatness danced in his head.  Just as certain it is that all of these great sports legends harbored ambitions of greatness, there is no doubt that all of the ambitions tucked away in the recesses of other wannabe’s minds were not, and are not, of such honorable quality.  Ambition in and of itself is not a redeeming quality.  It is the goal of that ambition and how it is orchestrated that makes it admirable.

From the beginning of our great nation, United States Presidents have unquestionably wrestled with the balance of their immense power and the ethics of exactly how, when, and to what degree that power should be exercised.  The ambitions of Nixon, who was drunk with power and ravenous for more of it, were effectively tempered by Legislative and Judicial counterweights.  It is revealing of exactly how far the integrity of our government has eroded that many of the unsuccessful efforts made by Nixon have been fully realized by subsequent Presidents with little or no consequence.  Articles of Impeachment were drawn up for Nixon accusing him of attempting unsuccessfully to weaponize the IRS for political purposes, while Obama successfully weaponized pretty much the entire Executive Branch to a good deal of celebration and fanfare.   Watergate was simply a ham-handed and unsuccessful attempt to steal the game plans of Nixon’s opponents; Nixon never ordered the break-in, but he orchestrated the attempted cover-up.  The Obama Administration used the power of the Justice Department and the FBI to steal the game plans of their opponents; even when “their” opponents weren’t even “their” opponents.  The acts that resulted in Nixon’s Articles of Impeachment and ultimate resignation hardly made a dent in the media-hyped gloss of The One.  Why have the ethical standards of government depreciated so badly and what does it mean for our country’s future?

In Nixon’s days, the Democrats and the Republicans fought tooth and nail for political supremacy.   But each Party had leaders who exhibited some modicum of statesmanship, foreign policy always enjoyed bipartisan efforts, and Congress took its role as a co-equal pillar of our tri-column government seriously.  Today, WDC is bereft of statesmanship, foreign policy is as politicized as domestic policy, and there are damn few serious people in Congress.  Nixon’s improper efforts to abuse his power were tamped down by the systems put in place by our founders.  Congress embraced its oversight role regarding the Executive Branch and both Parties joined in the effort to fulfill their appointed duties.    Today, both Parties eschew bipartisan efforts to serve in their proper oversight role and end up splitting  two ways; the Party that controls the White House acquiesces with the President to pursue the Party’s agenda and the Party that does not control the White House seizes every opportunity to obstruct the President’s initiatives. 

Just as the NCAA College Football Championship system is an aberration; so too are the Special Counsel provisions of the Justice Department.  Rather than deciding a championship on the field of play,  which I believe is the penultimate definition of championship,  a few individuals of overrated value and skill sit around and usurp the essence of competition to deign exactly who shall compete for the big prize.  Is it really so different when a Special Counsel is selected to operate on an unlimited budget of taxpayer funds to pursue legal ambitions that may wander far and wide with no boundaries while paying no mind whatsoever to time constraints?  Is this not the usurpation of the Congressional oversight mandate that the founders built into our government? 

When we as a people, when we as an institution, when we as nation put our complete faith and trust in individuals; we are condemned to disappointment.  Yes, there are honorable people amongst us and on various occasions, those honorable people are in the right place at the right time to help make the system work as it should.  These are the people whose ambitions met fruition in a good way.  Unfortunately, and all too often, we discover that when we allow the system to overly rely on the judgment or quality of a single individual, that individual turns out to one whose ambitions were meeting fruition in a fashion that provides a disservice to all involved.  We as people are inherently flawed and if we fail to embrace that truth, repeat that truth faithfully, and incorporate that truth in our daily lives, we do so at our own peril.  We need look no further than the lifetime appointments of the Federal Judiciary and how the rulings and legal misadventures of partisan and rogue judges have created havoc throughout our nation.  The current scandals surrounding FISA surveillance is another example of the corruption that excessive power cultivates.

There is a delicate and ongoing balance between national security and personal liberty.  We live in a world that contains dangerous people who want to harm us, our families, our communities, and our way of life.  But if we surrender our liberty…the very essence of this country…for the sake of added security, have we not forfeited the very thing that makes our lives worth living?  Not only is FISA questionable on the basis of its cost in loss of personal liberty, but the FISA system has been exposed as being highly susceptible to corruption.  Once again, if we rely on individuals to maintain the integrity of a system, we are bound to be disappointed.  Patronage appointees and high-ranking civil servants many times mistake their positions and/or tenure as a license to exercise personal judgment notwithstanding which actions are proper and which actions are improper, regardless of how the law impacts their decisions. 

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The oversight Committees of the House and the Senate are composed of men and women who will make mistakes.  But these people have been chosen by We the Citizens and they are subject to recall.  When they abdicate their duties to a Special Counsel, the process is distorted.  All of the proverbial eggs are put in a precarious position; a position that was unintended by our Founders.  Just as that NCAA Committee is a “less than optimum” option compared to a broader playoff system; the Special Counsel is a “less than optimum” option compared to orderly and responsible Congressional oversight of the Executive.

Nixon’s unholy ambitions came to fruition with Obama’s ability to somehow implement institutional abuse of Executive Power and escape (at least so far) accountability for that abuse.  Both men sought inordinate power in their office; Nixon simply for the love of power and Obama because of his narcissistic idealism.  Obama could not have done this if the Democrats in Congress had not colluded with him by surrendering their equal and rightful role in government administration and if the mainstream media had not turned a blind eye to his misbehavior because they bought into his mantra.  Obama was enabled by his Party in Congress to corrupt our government.  Nixon was not enabled by his Party in Congress to corrupt our government.  If and when President Trump ever seeks to co-opt the Republicans in Congress to corrupt our government, the Republicans in Congress must break the downward ethical spiral that our balance of power government is locked into and refuse to relinquish their role of co-equal party in control of government.  Failure to do so will only further solidify the entrenchment of Executive abuse of power, the corruptive and rogue behavior of federal agencies, and the dysfunction of this nation’s civil affairs.