Update no.587

Update from the Heartland

No.587

11.3.13 – 17.3.13

Blog version:  http://heartlandupdate.blogspot.com/

To all,

A good friend, intellectual and debate foil continues to offer fodder for an important public topic.  The extended thread is far too long for this humble forum; however, this latest extract should prove useful to all of us.

            “I don't think we discussed exactly what was the subject of this thread. I see little point in isolating the Newtowns, Columbines, and similar tragedies. Ugly as they are, they constitute a relatively small percentage of the firearms deaths in this country.

            “Your idea of using neighbors, relatives, and others to detect those dangerous people makes a bad situation worse. In the absence of real professional knowledge, people will use guesswork and prejudice to make those referrals. Think of the worst nosy neighbor you ever had when your children were at home. Now give that person the power to make endless trouble by referring you to the ‘social police’ over any behavior, condition, or appearance of which they disapprove. The experts to which they refer you cannot discern the future of your or your child's condition, personality trait, or whatever it is, if it even exists. (Remember that article?) The rest of your family and friends would rather not make trouble unless they're sure of a problem, and they're not sure because they have no expertise. Most of them won't intercede on your behalf either, for the same reason. Get the picture? You're a writer, Cap. Work out believable characters and play that situation out in writing. It makes ordinary corrupt cops look almost benevolent.

            “Good luck with trying to ‘intercede at the root level’ with the political climate as it is. Even people who seek treatment and/or medication for their known conditions cannot get those needs met. Expanding services beyond what they have been in the past is unlikely any time soon. I saw a story on NBC News this morning about James Holmes (Tucson, Gabrielle Giffords and many others). Apparently, he was one of the more obvious contenders to be a shooter, but was on his own and buying guns as he chose. That is a very long way from what you envision.

            “My regulatory focus would be less on the type of firearms (beyond the items you mention, at most) and more on tracking sales and finding some way to locate stolen weapons. I'm not sure that a background check is realistic in private sales among friends, but certainly gun shows could use modern technology to at least surface-level checks. Cell-phone companies have been checking credit while the customer stands at the counter for a long time now.

            “I have heard very little discussion of stolen weapons recently, but one of the ironies of all this is that many ‘home defense’ weapons and some hunting guns go through the hands of burglars who typically sell them to other criminals. We recently had a large-scale theft from a shooting range near here as well, but that is a security question, not the same as thefts from homes. Registration could help with thefts from homes to a degree by making it easier to trace the firearms if law enforcement ever finds them, but that is reaction not prevention and probably would only bring an additional charge if and when a criminal was arrested.”

My response:

            Alrighty then!  Yes, I agree absolutely, unequivocally and unreservedly . . . I want all violence, not just gun violence, to end, just as I want world peace and the end to all war.  Yes, tragedies like Newtown, Aurora, Tucson, Columbine and such are relatively rare in the larger context, yet they are quite dramatic, shocking and disgusting.  In the instance of Newtown, the event is being used to justify the imposition upon the freedom of every single citizen, not just those who choose to exercise that freedom; thus, the sensitivity to that particular rationale.

            Re: neighbors.  Well said and quite appropriate.  I do not want my neighbors in my private affairs any more than the government, but the government has far more power and effect than the neighbors, well except perhaps in small communities.  Then again, small communities tend to police themselves far more effectively than big cities.  I see my suggested Social Constabulary (SC) as an intelligence apparatus with no enforcement authority [which must be retained by Law Enforcement (LE)].  There are two key, vital elements to any intelligence collection operation – accuracy & reliability.  The collectors quickly sort out reliable from unreliable, and I do not believe will take long to identify a nosy, possibly malicious neighbor.  In fact, if the SC works properly, such troublesome reports will work to the detriment of the false accuser.  If a citizen sees a boy torturing an animal or bullying another boy, it needs to be reported and recorded.  A pattern of behavior will usually emerge.

            Re: story.  I have considered a novel to explore the good and bad aspects of the SC, isolation camps and blackhole prisons – fiction of course.  Who knows what tomorrow may hold?

            Re: root level.  I hold no naiveté regarding interceding at the root level.  Conversely, I am not willing to sacrifice my constitutional rights because we cannot find the will to deal with the root cause.  I have already stated my support for proper treatment of mental illness.  We are tragically deficient in that arena as Newtown, Aurora, Tucson, et al, so graphically demonstrate.  In my vision, at least the SC could collect and correlate such information, and those data might help us find the means to properly treat the mentally ill among us.

            Re: background checks & tracking.  As I believe I’ve stated previously, I am in favor of universal background checks, but only after there are laws and procedures put in place to ensure the privacy of such information and the specific limits on the use of those data.  The government has repeatedly proven itself unreliable in protecting the privacy of individual citizens; we don’t need to be amplifying its untrustworthiness.  Let’s see the protections, then we can expand checks & tracking.

            Re: registration.  Same argument.  The fear is once registered, it is a simple, small step to confiscation.  Where are the assurances and protections?  The government does not have the serial numbers of my weapons, and I have no intention of providing them.  If one or more of my weapons is stolen, I will certainly provide the requisite identifying data.

            Thank you for the continuing debate; this is important.

 . . . with this rebuttal:

            “I suspect you intended your statement about ending all violence as sarcasm. All the same, it leads to a valid question: what can we use as a reasonable standard for the level of violence we tolerate in our society? Perhaps using an average or median of developed nations in general would make a good starting point.

            “Anything scary will be used to justify any number of actions. No news there. Some people sell more guns, some people seek regulation, some people write books. Whatever. The largest example of this is 9-1-1, which has been used to justify a never-ending military action.

            “I still do not think neighbors and relatives will be useful in detecting mentally ill or otherwise dysfunctional people. Beyond that, you propose a government information-collecting effort in that paragraph but use two paragraphs to oppose less ambitious similar efforts further along in your email.

            “I think if you write stories with realistic characters based on people you have closely observed, perhaps supported by carefully designed studies, you will find a far better path to understanding society than that of reliance on unsupported intellect regardless of whose intellect produces the ideas.

            “We both support treatment for the mentally ill, but as of now we are voices in the wilderness. I see no way to make that a priority in Washington and the state capitals when the infrastructure is falling apart, the public schools are being starved of funding, and huge funding is wasted on the ‘war’ on drugs.”

 . . . to which I replied:

            Re: peace.  No!  Absolutely not, my words were offered with sincerity, not sarcasm.  I truly wish every living human being could live in peace, without violence.  I am idealist enough to think every human being wishes the same.  No level of violence is acceptable.  Yet, the realist in me recognizes and acknowledges that there are bad men among us, and there are bad parents who create those bad men.  The challenge for those of us who seek peace and non-violence is to find those bad men and intervene before they can hurt anyone else.

            Re: anything scary.  I’m not sure what to do with that.

            Re: neighbors.  Perhaps not; relying on family or neighbors is NOT the answer, only a fraction of the sources that should assist the SC in finding the bad men & bad parents.  The key to the SC is that information must be treated as intelligence, thus classified and restricted from use.  The purpose is not to collect all information, only that information that are indicators of potential future violence or threat.

            Re: stories.  Perhaps so.

            Re: mental illness treatment.  Indeed!  “War on drugs” – spot on!  But, all that said, the lack of mental illness treatment gives me little interest in sacrificing the freedom of all citizens.  Mental illness is a lot closer to the root cause for some (and probably more than we think) of the perpetrators.  We must get to the root cause if we have any hope of intervening before violence can injure others.

            Violence-prone individuals generally do not spontaneously combust; there is usually a progression or build-up that begins in early childhood.  We must get to the root cause to affect outcomes.  The key for us is collectively seeing those signs before combustion.

I have resisted the whole Bloomberg, nanny-state, drink-size kerfuffle until now.  To be frank, I figured such regulation was inevitable in New York City, and further, such limitations were the realm of local choice.  Then, on Monday, before the drink restriction became effective, a New York state judge declared the rule unconstitutional.  My curiosity had to be served.

            Judge Milton A. Tingling, Jr., Supreme Court, Civil Branch, New York County, heard the appeal and rendered appellate judgment in the case of NY Statewide Coalition v. NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene [NY SC index no. 653584/12 (2013)].  It is informative to note the whole of petitioners in this case – New York Statewide Coalition of Hispanic Chambers of Commerce; the New York Korean-American Grocers Association; Soft Drink and Brewery Workers Union; Local 812, International Brotherhood of Teamsters; the National Restaurant Association; the National Association of Theatre Owners of New York State; and the American Beverage Association.  The so-called Portion Cap Rule (PCR) on “Sugar Sweetened Beverages” (SSBs) is actually Amendment §81.53 to Article 81 of the New York City Health Code that was passed unanimously by the New York City Board of Health (BoH) on 13.September.2012, at the behest of Mayor Michael Rubens Bloomberg.  As noted by Judge Tingling, the PCR is a BoH rule.  Neither the state legislature nor the city council was able to pass similar or related PCR laws.  The PCR sets a maximum cup size of 16 ounces permissible for sale and self-service of SSBs available at food service establishments.  The beverages covered by the PCR are those that are calorically sweetened, greater than 25 calories per 8 fluid ounces of beverage, and contain no more than 50% milk or milk substitute.  Judge Tingling enjoined the city from enforcement of the PCR and based his injunction on the BoH’s violation of separation of powers doctrine, in that Mayor Bloomberg defined the object and language and the BoH adopted the Mayor’s language without the checks and balances under which the legislature or council must operate.  Mayor Bloomberg vowed to appeal Judge Tingling’s ruling presumably to the state supreme court as a whole and/or the U.S. Supreme Court.

            I appreciate Bloomberg’s willingness to do something about an important societal issue.  I truly do.  However, like so bloody many community challenges, his grievously misguided effort offended the freedom of choice of every citizens, resident or visitor in a rather lame attempt to “do something.”  This is the nanny-state at perhaps not its worst but in the same order of magnitude as other more serious state infringements on our freedom of choice.  In a democratic state founded upon personal freedom, change must come via the power of persuasion, by convincing citizens to alter their behavior by their choice, NOT by the dictum of the State.  It would be easy, indeed effortless, for me to accept the PCR as I rarely drink SSBs anymore and even more rarely buy any drink greater than 16 fluid ounces.  The PCR would probably never affect me.  Yet, the PCR is offensive to me on many levels, and I do not think Judge Tingling went anywhere near far enough in condemning such unilateral rules.  SSBs like so many other societal ills are symptoms, NOT the root cause.  We must find leaders and legislators who see beyond the façade of symptoms and zero-in on the root cause of problems.  Mayor Bloomberg is simply wrong on this foolish action as well as many others, and he is unfortunately not alone in his foolishness.

In the form of another ill advised, shallow proposal . . .

“18-year-olds are too young to be in porn”

by Charles Lane

Washington Post

Published: March 11, 2013; 11:32 PM EDT

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-lane-miss-delaware-teen-usa-too-young-to-be-in-porn/2013/03/11/bcbc6d12-8a7a-11e2-8d72-dc76641cb8d4_story.html?wpisrc=nl_politics

Lane indicated he was inspired to write his opinion by the plight and misfortune of Melissa King, former Miss Delaware Teen USA, for an alleged hard-core pornographic video that she performed in shortly after her 18th birthday and was reportedly paid US$1,500 for her participation.

            Where do I begin?

            I appreciate and respect the fact that most Americans are disturbed by pornography in general, and even more so by anyone getting paid for sex, and especially someone barely to the age of majority.  I believe we have every right to be offended.  I would also like to think we have matured a little since the righteous indignation of Anthony Comstock.  Yet, once again, passing laws to validate or enforce our sense of propriety is just as wrong as the Portion Cap Rule noted above.  There are very few among us who create and pass these damnable morality laws.  I could launch off into another tirade about imposed morality on private conduct; however, the issue in this instance is the legal age of majority.  Lane’s concern is King’s age.  He suggests the minimum age for sex workers, or the porn industry, join the national minimum drinking age at twenty-one years of age [PL 98-363; 98 Stat. 435, 437; 17.July.1984] [542].  Given the Supremes’ inclination to use the Commerce Clause to validate morality laws {South Dakota v. Dole [483 U.S. 203 (1987)] [570]}, they will likely follow along the same path if Lane’s suggestion becomes law.

            The basic law defines the age of majority as 18 years; children become official adults, responsible for their actions, and their parents are no longer responsible.  Then, we pass laws to confirm they are only kinda responsible in certain ways that do not offend our sense of morality.  I have always been offended by the dichotomy of our foolish morality.  We can draft an 18-year-old male into military service, yet we do not consider them old enough to consume an alcoholic beverage.  In this instance, we are debating whether we need a law to prohibit adults less than 21-years-of-age from working in the erotic entertainment business.  My opinion is quite simple.  Whatever threshold we determine that children become legal adults and no longer the responsibility of parents, then that should be it.  Our continued restriction on young adults is simply not justifiable regardless of the Supremes’ lame rationale in South Dakota v. Dole.  Once again, I recognize the well-informed, insightful and intellectually grounded, dissenting opinion of Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor; she has long been the voice of reason.  Whether an 18-year-old woman chooses to have a drink, or make a pornographic video, or enjoy the interaction of being a sex worker must be her choice and hers alone.  The law has no place in those choices or any other private choice of citizen’s in a free society.

Habemus papum!

            At 19:06 [A] CET {14:06 [R] EDT}, Wednesday, 13.March.2013, the Conclave of Roman Catholic Cardinals announced the election of Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina, a 76-year-old, Jesuit intellectual and Archbishop of Buenos Aires, to be the 266th pope – Pope Francis I – the first pope in a millennium from outside Europe and the first to choose an original moniker in 1200 years.  He did not waste time laying down the marker that he is a conservative cleric.  While we are likely to see a fresh and imaginative approach to papal interaction with the people, Pope Francis made it quite clear he is not keen on reform or modernization.  On the whole, the Francis papacy is more likely to be business as usual.

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved S.150 (notionally, the Assault Weapons Ban of 2013) intended to ban almost 160 specific military-style assault weapons by a party-line vote of 10 to 8.   The bill has been placed on the agenda for the full Senate, and even if passed, the bill must also pass the House and be signed by the President.  My opinion of this foolish legislation has not changed.

News from the economic front:

-- A joint statement by the European Union (EU), European Central Bank (ECB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) [AKA the troika] acknowledged a dispute over the redundancy of civil servants that has stalled talks between Greece and the international lenders, delaying disbursement of a €2.8B financial aid installment due this month and reignited fears the country’s bailout program maybe veering off track.  This is only the second time in almost three years of regular reviews of Greek progress on economic reform that the troika has left Athens without agreeing specific measures with the government.

-- A Senate panel voiced its displeasure with J.P. Morgan Chase [442, 468, 477] for misleading regulators and investors about the scope of losses on its London “Whale” trades last year [543].  Estimates put the bank’s trading losses at US$6.3B.

No comments or contributions from Update no.586.

My very best wishes to all.  Take care of yourselves and each other.

Cheers,

Cap                        :-)