GUN CONTROL IN THE U.S. – KINDA LIKE BEING JUST A LITTLE PREGNANT?

Disclaimer – I am a gun owner, firearms instructor and live in a community with a rifle range, pistol range and skeet and trap ranges all for the benefit and use of the residents.  I am a member of the NRA, but do not consider myself a “gun nut.”  I happen to like to shoot; at targets only by the way for all you PETA people.  I would like to think I am making a logical argument here, but I will admit the possibility of bias.

While I am a proud liberal and a card-carrying member of the ACLU, I am also a member of the NRA, which is almost oxymoronic, given the two organizations have diametrically opposed, and almost mutually exclusive, viewpoints on gun control.

The more conservative wing of the NRA would have us believe that there should be no form of gun control in any way, manner, shape or form.  I have spoken to individuals that have a very logical, but nonetheless ridiculous, argument.  The Second Amendment was put into place by the Framers of The Constitution for, among other things, the purpose of allowing the citizens to rebel against a government that becomes oppressive. 

Place this thinking into context; the United States had, in their recent memory, fought a bloody war and won independence from Great Britain and the oppressive rule of King George III.  The Constitution was, at that time, giving the federal government significantly more power than it had under our first governing document, the Articles of the Confederation and Perpetual Union between the States of (fill in the 13 original states here).  We use the short form to remember it by, “Articles of Confederation”.  Thus, our Founding Fathers and Framers of The Constitution wanted to make sure “We the People” could rebel against the federal government, should it become oppressive, making revolution necessary. 

If it becomes necessary to engage in a new revolution, the argument logically follows that, if the government has a weapon, we need one like it with which to revolt or defend ourselves.  We have heard from some groups, even in our own time, that we have reached the point that so-called “Second Amendment” and “Tenth Amendment” remedies are necessary, because our existing government has become oppressive.  I have this vision in my mind of pre-apocalyptic Tea Baggers from Montana and the U.S. military lobbing nukes at one another in the bad lands of the west, but that is ridiculous matter for another time.

This thinking, however, is why there are a not insignificant number of people that believe “We the People” should have available to us every weapon available in the arsenal of the United States Government, just in case we have to revolt.  In particular, they believe that every citizen of the United States has an “individual right” to keep and bear arms.  I strongly support the Second Amendment, and believe it to be such an individual right.  The Supremes (Supreme Court of the United States) have said so, but I am certain that I have no desire whatsoever to maintain a thermonuclear deterrent, tank, artillery battery nor a flamethrower in my garage or basement, just in case. 

I am not sure exactly where the line between reasonableness and nuts is drawn, but I am certain no one needs a personal A-bomb.  I do not think that the government has a legitimate interest in knowing who has what specific firearms. Thus I am not a believer in gun registration.   It would seem to serve only to allow the government to round up all the guns, if and when they feel it necessary.  The interest of "We the People" is not best-served if the governments can effectively round up all the guns, especially if they see the natives becoming too restless for them. 

Not having a government holding all the cards is a good thing.  An oppressive government is a whole lot less likely to pick a fight with the governed when the governed can shoot back.  If you think me ridiculous, you might recall that the Japanese never seriously entertained the idea of invading the continental United States during World War II because they were afraid they would get shot at by every citizen with a gun, and they believed, right or wrong, that every American had a house full of guns.  unknowingly, gangster movies and westerns made an effective deterrent.

The above arguments notwithstanding, I support limitations on the private ownership of things like explosives, fully automatic weapons and limitations on the carrying of concealed weapons.  When I say limitations, I mean things like background checks, licenses and such.  If you are not a convicted felon, are not a “mental defective” (a legal term), you should be able to own and possess a firearm or get a concealed firearms permit.  Oh, and when I say “mental defective,” I do not mean you have told your doctor you have been a little depressed, but if you are suicidal or feel the need to kill your ex-wife or local college students en masse, we need to talk.  “Reasonable” is obviously a color that has a lot of different shades. 

Gun control advocates, on the other hand, do not embrace this individual right interpretation.  They believe that it is the right of only a “well-regulated militia", basically the National Guard in each state, to keep and bear arms, and believe it to be a collective right.  Their ultra-left-wing nuts would insist that no one needs a gun for any reason and the private possession of firearms of any kind should be outlawed completely.  I am as equally opposed to this ban as I am the personal nuclear option.  The reasonable, as with most things, seems to lie somewhere between the polar extremes.

One of my primary considerations one the issue of gun control is that it is just impossible to eliminate private possession of firearms in the United States.  Just as Prohibition did not eliminate alcohol consumption, gun control will never eliminate guns.  Best estimates are that there are 350 million firearms in the United States.  We live in a country where there exists a firearm for every man, woman and child in the country.  No, not everyone has a gun, but there are enough people with bunches of them that they could be evenly distributed to everyone, with a few left over.   In this environment we could not eliminate private possession of firearms, even if we wanted to.  The environment would take generations to change and let me assure you there would be a bunch of people that would have weapons caches stashed all over the place.  You know the old, when-they-pry-it-out-of-my-cold-dead-fingers types.

Second, I think you can make anything illegal and it does not necessarily eliminate the problem.  Make it against the law to possess a firearm and there will always be individuals that possess firearms, and there will be too many to put them all in prison, trust me.  You also set up the situation where only the bad guys have the guns.  In my home state of Florida, there has never been a case of an individual that has a concealed weapons permit using a firearm in a crime.  There are, however, cases in which individuals with concealed weapons permits, or are otherwise in lawful possession of a firearm, that have defended themselves or others using those guns. 

Criminals are not notoriously future-oriented thinkers.  They do not generally consider whether they face prison time or the death penalty before they rob and kill someone.  I have interviewed hundreds, yes hundreds, of criminal defendants, and one thing was consistent, they did not think about the consequences of their actions before they did something incredibly stupid.  That is why they are criminals…DUH!!

I had the very enlightening experience of working as an investigator for the Office of the Public Defender for the District of Columbia for several months.  I could not carry a gun because it was illegal in D.C., but most of the clients, and many of the witnesses, I interviewed that were not at Lorton Correctional (used then as the pre-trial holding facility for D.C.), were strapping (carrying a concealed weapon, for the less street-wise).  Probably the only reason I did not get robbed and/or shot was the fact that I was working for the lawyer of some “respected” (spelled: F-E-A-R-E-D) ne’er do well.  They had to think, the ne’er do well might get off and he might not be happy if they screwed with the guy that helped get him off (Okay, so maybe they were a little forward thinking).  I completely understand (not approve) why they carried illegal guns as they lived in neighborhoods where I would not get caught after dark on a bet.  One of the axioms of P.D. investigators was not to be caught north of Rhode Island Avenue after dark.  That was about 3 decades ago, however.

Let’s sum up; the Supremes say it is an individual right to own and keep them, too many of them exist to get rid of them, bad guys don’t care that it is illegal to have or illegally use them , some good people, in spite of any law making it illegal, will keep them anyway, and some good people have lawfully defended themselves and others with them.  Yes, there were about  13,000 murders in this country in 2010 (the last year for which statistics are available).  We also had 254 million cars and 32,000 traffic deaths that year and no one is clamoring to take your car away, but that is comparing apples to oranges. 

I just don't think gun control will work, at least not for its intended purpose of reducing crime, no matter what you do.   Having guns in our society is also kinda like being a little bit pregnant, only on a permanent basis and, as everyone knows, you can’t be just a little bit pregnant. There are guns out there.  There are always gonna be guns out there and like the unwanted pregnancy, the time to have dealt with it was before it happened, but in our history we have never had a time when we didn't have guns.  There have always been guns out there, and I don't see guns going away in the foreseeable future.

The Dunces Will Doom Us - Barack Obama, The Muslim...Who Cares Anyway?

I have absolutely no idea why I am so irritated by dunces that they move me to respond, but, alas, I am moved to do so.  First note that I use the term dunce as it is defined in modern times, which I also believe is incredibly fitting for this situation.  A dunce is defined as “an idiot that is specifically incapable of learning.”  With that said, I address the dunces that still ascribe to the so-called “Birthers” that do not believe Barack Obama is legally qualified to hold the Office of President of the United States because he is not a “natural born citizen” as required by the Constitution, as prescribed in Article II, Section 1.

Some ultra-conservative, wing nuts still would like us to believe Barack Obama cannot be President.  I know this because I was recently forwarded the “absolute proof” in the form of a YouTube video, forwarded by a person that I can only assume has had somewhat more than half his brain removed.  You can watch the video at: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwhKuunp8D8&feature=player_embedded

Oh, and there is a comment to the video as follows:

“The video starts out with some content from obamasnippets.com, which, of course is contrived. And yet, there seems to be a synthetic truth about what the president says. Is he "natural born" according to the Constitution? No. It's likely that Mr. Obama was REGISTERED in Hawaii, therefore he has a COLB from Hawaii. The truth may well be he was born in Kenya; that is where we believe his "long-form" birth certificate was issued. Nevertheless, "natural born" indicates, and speaks to the fact that BOTH parents have to be U. S. Citizens. His father WAS NEVER a U. S. Citizen, therefore, Barack Hussein Obama is NOT a "natural born" Citizen of the United States, thus he is in violation of Amendment 14, and Article II, Section 1, Paragraph 5 of the United States Constitution.”

I shall give the lobotomized author of the comment a scintilla of credit for at least recognizing that the video is contrived, but as far as the rest of it, it proves he is truly a dunce.  Let us analyze…

“Is he ‘natural born’ according to the Constitution? No…The requirement is that BOTH parents need to be U. S. Citizens. Two U. S. Citizen parents produce a ‘natural born’ citizen.”

The Congressional Research Service has stated that the weight of scholarly legal and historical opinion indicates that the term means one who is entitled under the Constitution or laws of the United States to U.S. citizenship "at birth" or "by birth," including any child born "in" the United States, even to alien parents (other than to foreign diplomats serving their country), the children of United States citizens born abroad, and those born abroad of one citizen parent who has met U.S. residency requirements.  Interestingly, the Supreme Court of the United States has never been called upon to make a decision as to what constitutes a “natural born citizen.”  So, I guess we shall have to leave it to this definition, and under this definition, Barack Obama is a “natural born citizen.”

Another interesting point, assuming for the sake of argument that the commentator’s argument has any merit, is the fact that none of the Presidents elected prior to Martin Van Buren (The 8^th President of the United States) would have met the “natural born” requirement as they all had either one parent born in another country or they themselves were born British Subjects.  Thus, there is a very important clause in Article II, Section 1, “…or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution,…”  I mention this only to point out that the Founding Fathers did, in fact, contemplate a technically foreign-born president.  He (or she, as the Framers could not conceive of a female President – Hey, they may have been divinely inspired, but they were not omnipotent.) did not have to have two parents that were citizens of the United States.

This brings up an interesting conundrum for the wacko wing nuts that insist on espousing this ludicrous tripe.  One of the fundamental beliefs of the Conservative Right is that The Constitution can only mean exactly and precisely what is written on the four pages of the document (Yes, I know The Constitution of four pages long).  Following this logic, how do we know exactly what the Framers meant when they said “natural born citizen”?  Would not one have to engage in that horrendous, democracy-destroying practice of “judicial activism”?  I see absolutely nothing; zip, zilch, zed, nada, that would define a natural-born citizen as requiring both parents to be citizens of the United States.

What we have here is the classic example of “There are none so blind as those who will not see.”  It is not that there is any factual basis for the statements they make, but it is what they want to believe because it suits them.  It is an illegitimate effort to rationalize what they want to do; make Barack Obama not be President.

While we are at it, let us look at another issue; the religion of the President.  Exit polls in Mississippi and Alabama indicate that 52% and 45% of persons voting in the Republican Primary in those states, respectively, believe that Barack Obama is a Muslim.  I am not sure, but if literacy tests were required of these citizens, the Republican voting numbers would be reduced in accordance with these percentages.  Actually, you can read and right and still be a moron, apparently, as there are many very intelligent – a relative term – people that believe this and other things about candidates they do not support.  Although, I am hard pressed to find in history the vehemence with which it is believed.

I look at negative beliefs of the Conservative Right about the President and find them interesting to analyze as well.  The same people that believe Barack Obama to be a Muslim, also want to believe that he was a member of the Trinity United Church of Christ, because the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Jr. made statements and took trips that were, to say the least, inflammatory.  Folks, you can’t have it both ways.  He is either a Muslim, or a Christian.  I tend to go with the latter.  The man was married at Trinity United Church of Christ, had his children baptized there and attended services there regularly since he was 26 years old.  Are we to believe that he was some sort of undercover Muslim, infiltrating a liberal “unapologetically black” Christian Church?  Please, gimme a break!!

Thomas Jefferson believed that the survival of a democracy is dependent on an educated electorate.  He said, "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."  I am terrified that we are doomed because automatons that will believe anything, like Barack Obama is a Muslim, will vote like Conservative, political zombies, without thought or consideration.


Oh, and by the way, assuming Barack Obama is a Muslim; what difference does that make?

Why Do We Only Behave When Someone Is Watching?

A few days ago the Mine Safety and Health Administration, otherwise known as MSHA, released a report of things it did and did not do that contributed to the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster.  This report clearly states that MSHA did not "cause" the disaster, but admits that things they did or didn't do "contributed" to this tragedy.  I will not parse words and inquire as to the difference in this blog entry, but it does bring up an interesting thought....Why is it that we only do things the right way, the safe way, the legal way when someone is watching?  Apparently, only when someone is watching very closely!!

Massey Energy engaged in operations that were, by all accounts (except their own and their lawyers), illegal, unsafe, inconsistent with proper practice and probably immoral, unethical and fattening as well.  They did this because, as the MSHA report indicates, they were not being watched close enough.  While I do believe that MSHA bears some responsibility for a lack of supervision, I cannot help but ask the question; at what point does a person, company or any other entity somehow lose the responsibility for acting responsibly, regardless of whether someone is watching them?

In every person's life, there comes a point when we become responsible for our own actions.  It is sometimes based on our age, sometimes based on our circumstances.  A 21-year-old is presumed to be pretty much responsible for themselves, absent some sort of clear mental defect.  A younger person can be placed in a position that gives them responsibility and makes them responsible.  I was a young, make that very young, man in the military and found myself in a position of responsibility well beyond my years and experience.  I was held to a certain standard by people watching me and to whom I reported, but I was responsible because it was the right thing to do.

Massey Energy, and I think many other corporations, organizations and people, engage in conduct that can ultimately kill people, not just because they can, but because they have adopted a way of thinking that is fundamentally; "There is only one crime...getting caught."  This way of thinking is, at its core, immoral, but I also think it is the way our society is developing, unfortunately.

In the world in which the only crime is getting caught, we erode personal responsibility for our actions.  Eventually, we eliminate it altogether.  We see this tendency every day, but we do not see the ultimate conclusion. How many of us speed when we drive?  I do not mean 90 in a 55 mph zone, I mean 10 or 15 mph over the limit routinely?  I know I drive 8 mph over every speed limit.  I do it because I can.  I happen to know that unless I am in a school zone, I am not going to get a ticket.  Does the fact that I know a police officer is extremely unlikely to write a citation for this number of miles per hour over the speed limit make it any less illegal?

Please note that I use the term erode, because it is a slow process, glacial in its progress and barely noticeable.  It is not cause and effect.  Nobody that speeds is going to, as a result, also do something that is reckless.  The point is that it is so easy to do and we are all do it.  That does not make it right or responsible.

It makes no difference whether it is Massey Energy, cigarette companies, or a man charged with murder.  Every one of them will refuse to take responsibility for their actions and blame it on someone or something else.  Massey Energy blames the lack of inspections for the methane blast that killed more than two dozen men.  It was notour responsibility to do things right, it is yours to catch us.  The cigarette companies; God only knows how they justify what they make, other than lie to themselves and blame the smoker for personal weakness that eventually kills them.  I guess it is the legal idea of assumed liability; there is a warning label on every pack, so it is the fault of the poor dumb SOB that smokes. The murderer blames the fact that his mother was an alcoholic, the fact that he was from a broken home or a myriad of other reasons why he should not be put to death for the killing of another.  While I do not personally believe in the death penalty, I am able to recognize the technique used to avoid ultimate responsibility for one's actions.  In lesser crimes we allow entrapment as a defense.  I happen to agree that how you catch someone committing a crime in our democracy is important, but I can also acknowledge that it subverts the concept that people committing crimes are responsible for those crimes.

I cannot help but wonder whatever happened personal responsibility for one's own actions.  I do not think the concept of "it's always someone else's fault serves us well, neither personally, nor as a society.  I do not understand how an entire society can seemingly lose so much respect for personal morality, ethics and responsibility, absent someone monitoring their behavior.  They behave only because they might get caught.  Maybe that is why we are turning into a society of video cameras and transducers that can monitor our every move and project our personal information; it is the only reason we will act like decent human being.

The Truth is Dying Slowly…Honor is Probably Already Dead

“I, (state your name), swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God.”

This is the oath many people take under all sorts of circumstances.  We see it all the time in court; notaries administer oaths when we sign documents from affidavits to mortgages loan applications.  We even sign an oath when we are issued a traffic ticket and promise to appear in court without posting a bond to make sure we show up.  Literally, our word is our bond.  In days gone by taking an oath was important.  It was a way in which a man or woman gave his or her word that everything they were saying was the absolute, unvarnished truth.  However, it is my contention that the oath has become meaningless in the minds of many and honor is in terminal condition.  Lying has become the norm.  This has had an incredible impact on our society.

In court, we have long known, and pretty much accept, that criminal defendants lie; not all the time, but often enough that the sworn testimony of a defendant, absent some sort of corroboration, is automatically presumed to be a lie.  Hey, they have a fairly good reason to lie, even under oath.  They are facing jail or prison time.  That does not excuse it, but it is at least understandable.  Would I lie to keep a loved one from going to prison or death row?  Yes, probably.

Interestingly, there has been a response to this situation beyond juries just not believing those accused of crimes.  The response has been that some, not all, police now hedge the truth and sometimes just downright lie to make sure the defendant’s lies are countered.  It stems from the guys in the white hats (the forces of good) doing whatever is necessary to make sure the guys in the black hats (the forces of evil) do not triumph with their lies. 

The defense attorneys know their clients lie and with a wink and a nod allow them to do so.  Fortunately, the defendant is not required to testify, so he does not necessarily have to get up on the witness stand, take the oath and lie.  This does not prevent the defense attorney from representing the “facts” he knows not to be true to the jury.  Prosecutors, in response, also with a wink and a nod, watch as police officers testify falsely in an effort to convict the bad guy.  In the most egregious situations, prosecutors and defense attorneys suggest to their respective clients and/or witnesses exactly what needs to be said in the form of leading question interviews before trial.  You know, the questions like, “If it happened this way, it would be a lot better for our case.  Are you sure it didn’t happen this way?”  The wink and the nod are simultaneous or immediately follow.  The client/witness gets the hint and the testimony (sometimes only half-jokingly referred to as “testiphony”) follows.  Again, I understand the motive, but the hackneyed expression “the road to Hell is paved with good intentions applies here.

Years ago I learned something from a sage member of the bar.  He said, “Bill there is an incredibly important difference between what goes on out in the street and what happens in the courtroom.  On the street, people look you in the eye and lie to you.  In the courtroom it is completely different; they take an oath, look you in the eye and lie to you.”  While the remark was thick with sarcasm, it was nonetheless proven to be true in my experience.  There is another logical fact, at least in the criminal justice system, "All defendants lie.  All police, prosecutors, Judges and defense attorneys are aware of this fact.  All police lie.  All defendants, prosecutors, Judges and defense attorneys are aware of this fact.  From all of this lying, somehow justice is done."

In civil and criminal trials, everyone has accepted as pretty much fact that some expert witnesses are nothing more than paid liars who sell their opinions to the highest bidder.  I don’t care what side of the fence you are on, no matter what the issue, criminal or civil; I can find you a very qualified individual with lots of degrees and experience that will testify for either side of the issue, given the appropriate application of enough cold, hard cash.  So how do we rely on expert witnesses who can be bought?

I cannot help but wonder; how a system that is intended to find the truth manages to somehow accomplish the goal when everyone in it is lying.  I consider those lying under oath, especially when a man or woman’s liberty, and possibly their life, is at stake to be particularly abominable and for whom there is reserved a special level of Dante’s Hell, but there are so many other instances where lying has become almost an accepted norm.

Do any of us believe a politician anymore?  An entire internet business has been born as a result of lying politicians, and it makes no difference who it is, what party they  belong to nor what office they hold or seek.  Political fact checking is done by politifact.com and factcheck.org.  They purport to be non-partisan and non-profit organizations with only an interest in establishing the truth of what politicians say.  I use the term purport only because I have not researched each one individually.  Opensecrets.org is a group that established itself to try to figure out what politicians have been bought, to what extent and by whom.  This would seem to be a daunting task.  The mere fact that these organizations exist at all is bad enough, but it actually gets far worse.

Each one of these organizations that is dedicated to telling us whether politicians are lying or telling the truth have had to subdivide their determinations into degrees.  Politifact divides statements by politicians into “true”,” mostly true”, “half true”, “false” and” pants on fire!”.    I applaud the fact that groups have been created to check on statements made by politicians.  I also find it appalling that they are not only necessary, but they need to have different degrees of lies from none, through little white to full blown, liar, liar pants on fire.  Is it any wonder that the former joke, “How can you tell a politician is lying?  His lips are moving.” is no longer really a joke?  Am I the only one bothered that the leaders of our country are believed to be a bunch of liars?  Is it any wonder people do not flock to the polls at election time?  Their only choice is the lesser of all evils, and the lesser is still pretty evil.

So that takes care of the courts and politics, but as they say on TV, “Wait, there’s more!”  The internet is now full of emails being forwarded that have nothing to do with reality.  They can spread like wildfire and linger for, well, decades.  Not a day goes by that I do not get an email that purports to be some disaster or allegation against someone or some organization or warns us of a computer virus that will destroy our hard drives or turn our brains to a gelatinous substance.  We have snopes.com to check on these falsehoods.  I have no idea what it is that causes people to start, much less spread, this B.S., but they do it nonetheless.   I guess it is just the online equivalent of getting 15 minutes of fame.

Speaking of 15 minutes of fame, a number of years ago I recall that there was a very young girl reported missing.  At some point during the search an individual came forward and represented that he had witnessed the missing girl getting kidnapped.  He described how she was placed, as I recall, in a [ubiquitous] white van (I still don’t understand why everyone is always looking for a white van.).  After several days, the police started to notice inconsistencies in his story and, after some rather pointed questioning; the man admitted that he lied.  I cannot recall any explanation, never mind a good explanation, as to why he did this, but it is yet another example of someone lying, “because they can.”

My last example is the forms we fill out in everyday life.  Many of these forms are "sworn to."  Take a look at a mortgage application, not only is there a place where you sign, but there is also a statement that everything on the application is true and correct.  Occasionally, there are what I call "weasel words" like to the best of my belief or to the best of my recollection.  You will probably note that the statement you sign also includes certain provisions of federal law that makes it a felony to provide a bank with false information.  The same is true on an application for insurance.  Yep, you can go to jail for lying and not just when you are in court.

Look at many of the loan applications that were made during the mid 2000's.  A lot of mortgages were issued to people that were never going to be able to afford them, often because unscrupulous mortgage brokers had them sign applications on which their income, and other information was falsified to qualify for the loan.  The idea was, housing prices will rise and you can refinance when the mortgage becomes burdensome.  Unfortunately, the bubble burst.  Housing prices stopped rising and people that had already made false statements on loan applications lost their jobs.  The spiral downward was steep and swift.  Many of these people are lucky they are not facing criminal charges, quite frankly.

How do we deal with a society in which lying has seemingly become the norm?  Criminals lie. Police lie. Prosecutors lie (see the disbarred Duke Lacrosse Team prosecutor for an example).  Politicians lie and people in general lie, often for the sole reason that they can.  I shall endeavor to maintain my own personal honor and try my best in spite of it all and hope that people will recommit themselves to personal honor.

The Death Penalty - The Economics of Execution

In a previous blog post I outlined my objection to the death penalty based on the fact that it is an absolute penalty imposed by an imperfect system.  Now allow me to make a slightly more mercenary argument.  It is far cheaper to keep a person in jail for his or her natural life without the possibility of parole than it is to execute him.

Most Americans refuse to believe this, but the facts are incontrovertible.  The cost of sentencing and ultimately executing a person is, without exception, in every state with a death penalty, 10’s of millions of dollars per year more than keeping them in prison for their entire life! 

While the figures are hard to compare on a state-to-state basis, there are some examples to illustrate my point.  The State of Florida, where I live, would save approximately $51 million dollars per year if it stopped executing people; California, $90 million; North Carolina, $11 million and the list goes on and on.  Google it sometime and see what you get.  New Jersey and Illinois have both abolished the death penalty; New Jersey for the sole purpose of saving money, Illinois because the administration of the death penalty had become so flawed.   They were afraid they had already executed, or soon would execute, an innocent person, but they also figured out what it was costing them to impose the death penalty, and it was way too much, so they did away with it.

In this day and age of economic hardship, the math makes the decision.  Lock ‘em up, throw away the key and spend the difference on things like: more cops on the street, better crime detection techniques and building more jails and prisons to house prisoners that otherwise have to be released due to overcrowding.  You might want to try some drug treatment programs and some education programs aimed at preventing recidivism while you’re at it, but I recognize that is not popular among the true believers of an-eye-for-an eye justice.

In this country, 139 men have been released from death rows on the grounds of innocence.  Do we really want to make it easier to execute people?  Do we really want to make it just a little easier to execute an innocent person in a system that we is absolutely, positively proven to be imperfect? 

I have heard the arguments and the jokes about the death penalty.  One of my favorite comedians, Ron White, describes how many states are abolishing the death penalty while his state, Texas,  “is putting in an express lane”, limiting appeals to reduce the amount of time people spend on death row before being executed.   It is far too serious a matter to be joked about.  The point is, how can any thinking, feeling human being propose that we reduce the protections already in place in a system that would have resulted in the death of 139 innocent men had those protections not been in place?  We managed to convict those men in spite of their innocence and, but for the appellate process (and at times in spite of its already flawed nature), these innocent men would be dead.

If none of the moral, ethical or legal arguments work for you, no problem; how about the fact that it just plain old costs less to keep them in prison until they die than kill them?   I propose to abolish the death penalty because it could result in innocent people being killed and there is a cheaper alternative.  Not good enough; next blog entry on the death penalty, even more reasons.

A Comment on Voodoo Economics by DLW

What follows is a comment made by follower "DLW" regarding my post on "Voodoo Economics."  It is not posted as a comment as a result of it being over the 5,000-character limit imposed by the blog site.  Please note that it is posted in its entirety and without editing of any kind.  DLW comments as follows:

Ah, the myth lives on.   Voodoo  economics is too polite for the  SUPPLY side (build it and they will come) theory of economics,  not only because it does not work, but because  Capitalism is a demand driven economic system.  The failure of your business depends not on the amount of  money you have to create the business or even  how many businesses you can create, but rather on who is available to buy your product.  Without buyers for your product  your business will surely  fail.  Don’t believe it, try building a McDonald’s in the Sahara desert.   Hell,  you are the entrepreneurial elite who should pay no taxes because you make jobs,  build ten (10) Mc Burgers in the desert and watch your sales go wild... but wait, you will have no sales because there are no customers (DEMAND).

                                                                                                           

Take this silly SUPPLY side theory one step further;  is anyone really going to build a business when there is no one willing to purchase the product being sold?  When businesses are cutting back, routinely closing, and recording dismal, if any, profits,  are  we to believe that new businesses will enter the market to lose money also?  I think not, they will wait until the market improves and appears to be growing or open only where the market evidences a demand for a product.

Also please remember that DEMAND is based not only on what you want (as in  I want a new black Corvette), but also you must have the ability to pay for the item you desire (as in I can only  afford a new scooter).

So, when your work force is dramatically under and unemployed (a major symptom of an economic downturn) they (the workforce) have no money to purchase any items in the economy and your economy worsens with every layoff and closed business.  This of course is the downward spiral of a recession.  The less demand the more businesses cut back by laying off the workforce, which of course results in even less DEMAND for products and services.  

Hence, the next problem.  How do you create  DEMAND.    While businesses cut back and attempt to hold their own, who is going to enter the marketplace and hire workers?  History has taught us that the private sector will not affect the market  until the economy begins to again grow and evidences a DEMAND (and therefore a need) for either more of existing products or the production of new products.  

If not the private sector, can  government produce jobs which are necessary to create DEMAND for products.   Directly no, but it can indirectly through our  vibrant use of our nations fiscal policy.  Again relying on that pesky thing called history, do you not recall the WPA (works progress administration) the CCC (civilian conservation corp), the TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) and other government programs that provided funds to private enterprise and governments to fund construction projects and revitalization programs throughout the Great Depression.   

Do you really think it is coincidence that so many bridges, damns, and infrastructure  projects for our country were created during the Great Depression.  Deficit spending in economic downturn periods is essential as the Federal Government is the only entity available to fund the projects.    While the opponents of deficit spending are maniacal in their zeal to oppose further federal spending, none of them offer a solution for stirring demand other than claiming the private sector will.  The  question of course  is  why in the course of our economic history has the private sector  never pulled us out of a depression?   This is why the idea of reducing taxes on the rich is ridiculous (unless of course you are rich).  The rich already buy what the need and merely retain tax relief for future investment, while the working middle class spends its income on durable goods and services they need  which create DEMAND  and leads to  the expansion of the economy.

Addressing the problem a little more broadly,  when we  speak  of Capitalism we must address the mantra that has developed concerning Government intrusion and regulation into our economic system.  The  complaint is made as if Government has no role in Capitalism and should take a hands off approach to business, as the market is the only true arbiter of the strength of a business.   This is the LASSIEZ  FAIRE  Capitalists dream.   The idea that  our economy should be free from government intrusion, taxes, restrictions, regulations, or other dictates  is actually quite ridiculous and in fact antithetical to Capitalism.   Think not?

If we  consider that Capitalism is little more than a Darwinian economic system where the strong survive and multiply and the weak die, we must realize the strength and essence of Capitalism is competition.  If you can compete with quality, service, and price then  your product or service will succeed, and if not your new  Bible will contain only Chapters 7 and 11.

Is it  not then indeed strange that the very nature of  all businesses is to seek  a larger and larger share of the market which naturally diminishes  competition.  The determined, if unstated,  goal of business is actually to  eventually create either a monopoly (one supplier)  or oligopoly (a few suppliers), both which minimalize competition.  Nothing could be more destructive to Capitalism. 

Think not, well evaluate the price competitiveness of big oil,  big pharma, or big banks.  Simply, the fewer providers of a product means  that there will be  less flexibility in pricing, less responsiveness to consumer concerns, and usually more political power.   The trend in  the last forty years is to reduce competition by gobbling up the competition in mergers, acquisitions and takeovers.   Do a Google search for the number of oil companies of forty years ago and you will find more than ten national oil companies and more than twenty five regional oil companies.   Today we have five conglomerates servicing our needs (no pun intended).  They are oh so responsive aren’t they?  Find much price competition;  find much actual rationalization between price and  supply?

Noting the self destructive nature of the businesses in a Capitalist economy it becomes an absolute requirement of Government (as the only non market actor) to play the crucial role in maintaining competition.   A very conservative U.S. Congress  in 1890 enacted anti-trust litigation known as the Sherman Anti Trust Act, followed in 1914 by the Clayton Anti Trust Act.   The Governments role in our economy is not only important, it is preeminent as without the maintenance of competition we do not have Capitalism.

The rationale  for business  mergers and acquisitions is that the dominant company will be stronger, possibly more efficient, and certainly more profitable.  However, the question in a Capitalist economy is never whether the individual business will be stronger, better, or more efficient, (as we can conclude it would or there would be no acquisition),  but rather  will the  market be more  competitive.  This is why the Government has the duty to review and approve major acquisitions that have the potential to affect the competitive nature of the market.

The attacks on the Governments stringent requirement for the maintenance of competition has lead to an impotence of our anti-trust enforcement that has allowed for the consolidation of  the oil industry, the banking/stock industry, and far too many others.   How do you think that has worked out for us as a nation?

This LASSIEZ  FAIRE  dream also forgets that  Government involvement (a blasphemy per se) includes whenever  a Government  provides a tax incentive, a loan, a guarantee, a price support, an import restriction, or any other device that assists or protects a business.  Every law, whether criminal, civil, affecting rights, liberties or taxes is discriminatory,  as laws are designed to allow someone to do something they want to do and to discourage or prohibit someone  else from taking other actions.  Therefore, if a Government provides a tax incentive, a loan, a guarantee, a price support, an import restriction, or any other device it necessarily discriminates against other businesses which do not get such assistance and resultantly affects the marketplace.

Government involvement is necessary for a strong and vibrant Capitalist economy, system dependant on a monetary and fiscal policy to even out the down turns in  economic cycles and to monitor and require competition which is the soul of our Capitalistic system.  

In short, when someone tells me that the Government has no role or place in affecting our economy,  I smile  realizing the selection pool for Mensa just got smaller.

Neo-Voodoo Economics...If You Build It They Will Buy?

We are seeing the rise of an old and ugly economic term; “Supply-Side Economics”.  It is ugly because it has a much better image than any economic substance to it.  Ronald Reagan, “The Great Communicator”, managed to sell it to the public back in the late 70’s and 80’s.  “Voodoo Economics”, “Reaganomics”, “Supply-Side Economics”; call it what you will, it is pretty much all the same thing and it just doesn’t work.  While it does have sort of a nice, logical, warm fuzzy feel because it provides corporations and the rich with tax breaks that will allegedly give us all jobs and fix our broken economy, that does not make it any more effective.  It will never work.  Allow me to explain.

The theory goes like this in very simple terms; if the government gives tax breaks to the corporations that make stuff, let’s call them widgets, they will have more money and will hire more people to make more widgets to sell to people.  They will sell more widgets and will make even more money, thus, the economy miraculously turns around.  If this worked, it would be a warm, fuzzy answer, but it doesn’t work.  Let us look at why.

Let us make a few assumptions that most of us can relate to in our current economic situation.  Consumers, the people that buy widgets, have seen the economy go down the toilet over the last three or four years.  Many people do not have jobs and therefore, no income.  Other people are scared they may be laid off and are saving for the anticipated rainy day.  Many people owe more money on their homes than they are worth; some are going into foreclosure due to the fact that they do not have jobs or the fact that they are just not going to make payments on a house they can never get their money out of, ever.  Many have no idea what is going to become of them in the near and long-term future. 

Credit has tightened up and, in a very short period of time, people in our society went from spending 6% more than they made, using credit cards and home refinancing, to spending 6% less than they make.  This is a 12% shift in spending, a huge change and shrinking of the economy.  Consumers had been slapped in the face by the rainy day for which they had not saved, they learned their lesson and are now hoarding cash because they think it is going to rain harder in the future.  This is a lack of consumer confidence. 

If you boil all the above down to basics, people do not have any money and they can’t get any with which to buy widgets.  If they are unemployed and cannot find a job, they certainly can’t buy widgets they don’t absolutely need.  If they are working, they are not increasing their wages because companies are not making any money. They cannot borrow on their homes because they are underwater on them and they can’t use credit cards because they can’t get them and won’t use them anyway.  Simply put, no one has any money and can’t get any.

Corporations are rational and make decisions based on simple considerations.  They want to make money, plain and simple.  Corporations are not going to make widgets for which there is no demand.  You can give them all the tax breaks and deregulate them all you want, if there is no one to buy widgets, they are not going to make more widgets, period.  The neo-supply-siders somehow think that if you build it, they will buy.  This made a really nice plot line of sorts in “Field of Dreams” but that was a movie and old, dead baseball players are not going to come out of the corn field and thousands of consumers are not going drive in to buy widgets when they have no money.  If they build them, all there will be is an inventory of widgets the corporation/manufacturer cannot sell.

People mistakenly credit Supply-Side Economics with the economic recovery during the Reagan years.  It was coincidence and there are other, better reasons for the recovery.  The credit can still go to Reagan, but for completely different reasons.  In what statisticians refer to as a “correlation” we became convinced that Supply-Side Economics succeeded in getting us out of a recession, when the two events were not “cause and effect”.  In a correlation, two events may just coincidentally happen at the same time, one may not make [cause] the other to happen.  A causal relationship will produce correlations; but many correlations do not indicate cause and effect.  Let us look at an example of the falsity of the correlation logic.

“The more firemen fighting a fire, the bigger the fire is observed to be.  Therefore firemen cause fire.”  In this example, the correlation between the number of firemen at a scene and the size of the fire does not imply that the firemen cause the fire. Firemen are sent according to the severity of the fire and if there is a large fire, a greater number of firemen are sent; therefore it is rather that fire causes firemen to arrive at the scene. So the above previous conclusion is false.

During the Reagan years there were a lot of things that were going on at the time that contributed to the economic recovery.  The Reagan Administration and Congress, engaged in massive deficit spending.  This was, in part to out-spend the Soviet Union on The Strategic Defense Initiative; SDI or “Star Wars” as it became known.  What Ronald Reagan did was put this country on an economic war-time footing, spending money in order to break the economic back of the Soviet Union.  It worked, but it also had a side effect.  It poured money into the economy and into people’s pockets.  They had money and they could buy stuff.  This created demand and manufacturing boomed because people buy the products being produced.

If you recall from your history, it was really the onset of World War II that ended “The Great Depression”.  The United States had to enter the war after the attack on Pearl Harbor and, pardon the pun, did so with a vengeance.  We opened up the National Treasury, sold War Bonds (government borrowing) and generally said to hell with future debt problems, we have a war to win.  Every able-bodied man, woman and child was put to work making stuff for the war.  It got sent off to the war, got shot down, blown up or otherwise destroyed and had to be replaced.  Demand, on an immense scale, ended the Great Depression.  World War II was the largest government public works project this country has ever known.

Another thing happened as well in the 1980’s.  The personal computer and other new technologies began to come of age and people found reasons to buy the new technology.  This, in combination with the fact that people had money, created jobs in the technology industry and thus matured “Silicon Valley”, a brand new area where people could get jobs.  So it helped the upward spiral.  People wanted the new, different and exciting technologies, and they had the money to be able to afford them; again, a demand-driven recovery.

The long and the short of all this is that you can give as many tax breaks and cut as many regulations as you want and the fact is that if consumers don’t have any money with which to buy the products that are being made, the economy just stagnates.  Corporations increase their profits garnered from the tax breaks and lessened costs of regulation, make their books look really good, but don’t engage in any activity that helps the economy as a whole.

Voodoo Economics; it didn’t work then, it won’t work now and it will never work.  We live in a demand-based economy and no matter how much you make, if consumers cannot afford to buy it, there is not reason to make it.  I invite your comments.

Soon, a blog on what just might work, but it will hurt….a lot.