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.
I hadn't given gun control much thought until the shooting in Aurora last week when I thought to myself, how many loner, shy and awkward boys need to go ape shit on a crowd before gun control becomes a more serious consideration up in this place?
Guns are not the only problem, of course, American culture, untreated mental illness (health care is expensive after all), education, the decline of real communities, overpopulation are also to blame, but guns seem to be the one thing that are somewhat in our control. Gun advocates always invoke the 2nd amendment any time the topic of gun control comes up, but one can poke a few holes in this argument or at least have serious debate as to the meaning of "the right to bear and keep arms."
For one, the reason behind the right to bear arms is that a well regulated militia is necessary to the security of the free state. I don't see people with guns rising up in an organized fashion against the tyranny of Federal government these days, do you? The last time that happened was the Civil War and the South had the brilliant Robert E. Lee at their helm; we know how that ended for them. And even if they did "rise up" today, there is no way that they could defeat the Federal Army. The truth is, if we want to avoid the kind of violence we've been seeing in the last 20 years, either all private citizens should be required to carry guns or none should be allowed to. If we all owned and carried guns, then you could apply the traditional political science argument of deterrence oft used when discussing nuclear weapons. That is, If the US has nuclear weapons, then Russia has to have them too in order to deter one another from actually using them. That theory worked best when we were living in the neat and tidy bipolar cold world era, less so these days when rogue groups everywhere are capable of procuring WMDs. But imagine if everyone in the Aurora theater had guns on them, for instance, then James Holmes would only have the element of surprise to his advantage. People in the theater could shoot back, likely causing chaos and possibly more injuries and deaths, but it would have been a fairer fight with other possible outcomes besides helplessness, vulnerability and sheer luck. Or, better yet, if deterrence actually worked, maybe he wouldn't have done it at all. This argument is pretty ludicrous, in case you were wondering.
The flaw in the right to bare arms is that it is just a right, not a legal obligation, so there will always be an imbalance of power among our citizens. But then the problem becomes that if it were a legal obligation, then people would no longer have the freedom to choose whether or not they want to own guns, thus compromising, well, the very freedom we are so proud of. But when it comes to life or death, is there a choice? When one person has a gun and the other doesn't, the person with the gun has the ability to kill the other, whether or not he exercises that power is entirely up to him. That logically means that the right to bear arms has nothing to do with freedom, it is merely a power that certain individuals have over others and creates inequality, which is the opposite of what the Constitution intended.
Our forefathers weren't perfect, we are allowed to learn from our mistakes, we are allowed to adapt to our time, and with the way modern weaponry, government and community have evolved, it begs a real debate and real solution to updating or abolishing the 2nd amendment. As it stands currently, it seems outdated and mostly applicable to the era of the 18th and 19th centuries. Our leaders have been complete cowards thus far in dealing with this issue. Now that Obama no longer faces the pressure of getting reelected, it is clearly the time to do something.
And in conclusion, Nas said it best when he wrote the song I Gave You Power. In this song, Nas personifies a reluctant gun. A concept that is both brilliant and brilliantly executed. It's one of the best songs on the album "It Was Written."
I seen some cold nights and bloody days
They grab and me bullets spray
They use me wrong so I sing this song 'til this day
My body is cold steel for real
I was made to kill, that's why they keep me concealed
Under car seats they sneak me in clubs
Been in the hands of mad thugs
They feed me when they load me with mad slugs
Seventeen precisely, one in my head
They call me Desert Eagle, semi-auto with lead
I'm seven inches four pounds, been through so many towns
Ohio to Little Rock to Canarsie, livin harshly
Beat up and battered, they pull me out
I watch as niggaz scattered, makin me kill
But what I feel it never mattered
When I'm empty I'm quiet, findin myself fiendin to be fired
A broken safety, niggaz place me in shelves
under beds, so I beg for my next owner to be a thoroughbred
Keep me full up with hollow heads
Chorus:
How you like me now? I go blow
It's that shit that moves crowds makin every ghetto foul
I might have took your first child
Scarred your life, crippled your style
I gave you power
I made you buck wild
Youth Joblessness: No End in Sight
Youth unemployment is at its worst in decades. And economists aren't sure that it will ever go back to pre-recession levels. The outlook is grim. I'm glad I don't have a kid out of college right now. Hopefully by the time I have one- maybe- this problem will have resolved itself, either through some grand government program a la New Deal, or a pandemic that will reduce the world's population by say 30%. Of course, I myself prefer not to be a victim of this pandemic.
Jessica Biel's Outfit Dilemma.
I also think it's important to note that Jessica Biel sometimes has "dressing dilemmas" and claims that her fiance, Justin Timberlake, has better taste than she does (I can believe that, dude has taste). As a matter of fact, she had no involvement in the designing of her probably over-priced engagement ring, it was all Justin. Hmm, interesting.
I Used to Love Her But I Had to Flee Her: On Leaving New York
This guy really wants me to give him a medal for escaping the tentacles of New York City. But he is sort of insufferable about the whole thing. When he was in New York, he basically thought that he was better than non-new yorkers:
I had sex in the bathroom at Union Pool and walked out feeling rebellious while my girlfriend adjusted her bra. In the summers, when others fled to Montauk or the Hamptons, I would buy to-go margaritas from a little place in the Lower East Side and drink them while walking home across the Williamsburg Bridge. I'd stop halfway over the East River, sweat forming a Rorschach pattern on the back of my shirt, and let the breeze give me goosebumps.
Now that he lives in LA, he's trying to explain to people in New York that he is better than them somehow, because he "escaped" New York. So it's really a win-win for him, he's just better than everyone at all times of his life, period. Look man, live wherever you want. Personally, I'm just trying to make a living and function in society. Wherever that works out for you, call that home. It's not my problem you were a judgmental failed writer whence living in New York... Nope, no judgments from this New Yorker (who, by the way, doesn't think she is better than other people just because she was born and currently lives in New York -- that's such an outsider-living-in-New York thing to do).
Adam Carolla, Women Aren't Funny blah blah blah...
This comedian, Adam Carolla, takes a page right out of Christopher Hitchens' playbook, and claims in an interview somewhere that women aren't funny (oh, yawn). It's not that I care that he says that; it's that countless blog after online magazine dedicated entire articles on dissecting the very meaning of life via Adam Carolla's idiotic statement (ok, who am I kidding, they need content, this is perfect for that... The kind of story that generates clicks and guarantees Comment-al warfare). I don't mind that they called him out and gave him a ton of free press he couldn't have dreamt of having otherwise, I mind that they dedicated so much careful thought and analysis into denouncing Carolla as a sexist, unfunny, douchebag. I mean, it only took me three words. Jesus.
For your viewing enjoyment, this is old but still very funny:
Bird and Fortune: Subprime Crisis.
And here is part 2.
I was thinking about the bank bail-outs the other day, as one does, and reminded myself of how jipped the American people were in that whole affair. The bail-outs were a necessary evil, sure, but after the American tax-payer bailed out the banks, nothing was done for them in return. One might argue that yes, the recovery of our economy was given to them in return but that's the whole reason they were given a bail-out to begin with. If you threaten anyone with the worldwide collapse of the economy, then yes, anyone will probably try to stop it. But where are our interest payments? An emergency loan should still come with interests.
If the rules of capitalism are going to be broken for a few banks and auto companies, then those same rules should be broken for the American people (I'm looking at you, conservatives). And nothing bothers me more than finance people telling me that it's all too complex for me to understand (you're oversimplifying). It was certainly too complex for me, and for many others who worked in the financial industry, actually. The average banker is not that smart but made a lot of money back in the mid aughts, and therefore, firmly believed that he was smart and deserving of the high compensation. Paying someone more than they're worth is very dangerous. But I digress. Oversimplification is a great tool to get to the heart of any matter. Yes, there are grey areas, and yes there are complexities but that doesn't overshadow the general events that took place here. Banks took advantage of deregulation to invent new financial "products" that a total of two people in the industry actually understood in their entirety, new financial products rely on sub-prime mortgage packaging to make shit tons of money, real-estate market falls because somebody somewhere asked how much are these houses actually worth? Music stops. Some banks find themselves without a chair. Is it really that complicated?
I especially feel that those people who found themselves in foreclosure should have been relieved of some of their debt, because they were the direct victims of what feels like a global scam. This has a slight taste of Ponzi to me. Even Madoff's victims got some money, albeit a more symbolic gesture than anything. But I see very little difference here, except some way somehow it was all on the right side of the law (lucky you!). You can't help everyone out of this crisis, that I understand, and I certainly don't expect anything myself, but at least the most vulnerable and direct victims should have gotten something in return for their tax money being used to rescue the economy. I believe this is why the Occupy Movement started. It was unfocused and disorganized in its message but it became a platform for people to air their grievances. It captured a general sense of unjustness that was felt across the nation after the bail-outs. Life's unfair, sure, everyone knows that and deals with it as they can, but in my opinion and many others', the underlying causes of this recession were criminal.
