"Constitutional" Carry

The gun absolutists have been throwing around the term "Constitutional Carry" to describe gun laws that allow unrestricted gun ownership - no background checks, no permits, no safety classes - nothing. The term is a work of marketing genius! Who could be opposed to something that was constitutional? But is it really? They focus on the words "Shall not be infringed" in the Second Amendment, ignoring the context of the rest of the amendment. 

Contrary to what the words "well regulated" mean today, in the 18th Century they carried the meaning of "well-organized", "well -prepared" or "disciplined" and did not refer to regulations as we understand them today. So the first part of the amendment is saying that the militia must be prepared and ready to carry out its duties when called upon. "Hah!" a Second Amendment absolutist might say - "See! It's not about regulation at all!" But the next phrase "Being necessary to the security of a free state" must be considered. Unlike today, when we have a large standing army, the defense of the nation was largely in the hands of state militias, which could be called up and nationalized. Many on the right maintain that militias also existed in order to stand up against so-called tyranny of the national government. I find this difficult to believe, that anew government would codify the means of its own overthrow within its founding document. 

Then we have the words "The right of the people to keep and bear arms...". Until 2008 "the people" was not interpreted necessarily as an individual right, but one of the plural "people". When you take the whole amendment as a unified whole, rather than disjointed, unconnected clauses, it's obvious (to me anyway) that the founders wanted "the people" to be able to keep (own) and bear (use) weapons in order that the militia (which existed for the security of "the state") might be prepared to do its duty (i.e. that members would not need to be trained after they were called up, but were ready in advance to use those weapons). 

Anyway, that's my interpretation, which I share with many Americans. The "Constitutional Carry" people want us to think that there's only one "right" way to interpret the Second Amendment and anyone who wants any kind of reasonable, rational regulations is anti-Constitution. Like I said earlier, great marketing, but deception Constitutional analysis. 

The Case For Conservatism

Don't worry, I haven't gone off the deep end and seen the MAGA "light", but I want to take a few paragraphs to talk about what conservatism, shorn of the detritus of racism and pseudo grievance could be, and once in a while, is. I'm not going to be describing what the modern Republican Party has become since Newt Gingrich's time as Speaker, let alone the monstrosity that it is under former President "Losin' Don" Trump. 

Conservatism, boiled down to its essentials, is a political philosophy that is for (1) Limited government (2) A strong military and (3) Fiscal responsibility. These basics translate into a variety of policies and positions. One of these is minimal regulation. A fiscal conservative believes that business owners should have the freedom to run their businesses as they see fit, without the government requiring their products to meet certain standards or that they maintain humane working conditions. A fiscal conservative believes that the free market will, by offering consumers and employees choices, regulate itself. Competition will weed out the harmful companies. 

A conservative, as part of their vision for limited government, will be in favor of low taxes. The less that government does, the less money it will need to run itself. A conservative believes that a person's paycheck is best spent by the person who earned that paycheck. Social programs are also anathema to a true conservative. Part of a conservative's view that government should be small, constrained in its duties, is that each individual is responsible for their own welfare. Any help to a struggling family should come from the community in the form of friends and family or the local church, not the government. 

In an ideal world, a world where the free market was self regulating and self correcting, where no one fell between the cracks, but was helped by a network of supportive friends and family, and wealthy businessmen altruistically saw to the needs of the community, conservatism just might work. 

Maybe.

But the problem with conservatism is twofold: (1) We don't live in an ideal world and (2) Self-described conservatives have always done what they could to benefit big business despite their talk of limited government. 

Of course there is an argument to be made that our government is too big, that the debt and deficits are out of control and that regulatory agencies have too much power. But the answer is not to shrink the government back its size during the nation's mostly rural, pre-industrial, founding. The answer is balance.

Today's pseudo-conservatives claim to revere the Constitution, and especially put the Second Amendment (or their interpretation of it) on a pedestal, but ignore the very first words:

We the people of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and out Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America

How then, are we to establish justice, promote the general welfare and all the rest? By pretending that we live in a conservative utopia? Or by expecting the government to take an active role in making these things a reality? Has the general welfare been promoted when millions live in poverty? When racism excludes a vast number of our fellow citizens from participation in society? When rapacious billionaires line their own pockets while screwing over consumers? I think the obvious answer is that government must take an active - an active role in ensuring the blessings of liberty to its citizens. Liberalism is the political philosophy which believes that government has that responsibility. Naturally, liberalism can go too far, and fiscal conservatives can serve as a counterweight to excesses. 

Today's conservatives, found mostly in the Republican Party, have become completely unmoored from conservative principles, focusing instead on what amounts to White Christian Nationalism, "othering" Blacks, LBGTQ people, immigrants, non-Christians, and anything that deviates from their picture of what "real" Americans are. They have become a cult, elevating "Losin' Don" as their savior and rewarding any politician who mimics his style of hatred. So, in addition to pure conservatism not being a workable philosophy in the real world, "conservatives" aren't even actually conservatives any more. 

There are, without a doubt, excesses to be found within liberalism and its advocates in the Democratic party, but in this day and time, there is no sane alternative.

The Will of The People

What most of don't think about is that our elected representatives are under no obligation to vote in such a way that represents the will of the majority of their constituents. Sure, we can vote them out the first chance that we get, or in some jurisdictions recall them, but as long as they can portray themselves at least as the lesser of two evils, they're going to get elected again...and again.

Two good examples in Nebraska are the attempts to restrict abortion so much that it's effectively outlawed and the bill that is on its way to approval that will provide generous tax credits (not deductions, but credits) to anyone donating to a private school - sending tax dollars by a circuitous route to non-public schools, over which the local school boards and the Department of Education have no jurisdiction. In recent polling, Nebraskans support a legal right to abortion 54-46% and oppose state tax money going to private schools by over 60%. So how is the "will of the people" being so egregiously flouted?

The problem is that most voters are not informed on the issues and cast their ballots for emotional reasons, not rational ones. Emotions are inflamed by lobbying groups who use their resources to tell people what's important and paint anyone who disagrees with them as radical, extremist, traitorous, communist, anti-God. Look at our current governor - who knew what his legislative priorities would be in any detail before the election? Despite refusing to participate in open debates in either the primary or the general election on the grounds that they were political theater, his ads were not much more than him posing with a gun while wearing hunting gear and blathering about "Nebraska values". Any statements that he did make, in safe venues, concentrated on culture war issues, such as Critical Race Theory (which isn't taught in any K-12 schools), accusing the Democrats (as if we had many around here) of being socialists and ranting that "killing babies" had to stop. 

For quite a few years a significant majority of Nebraska voters have elected only Republicans in statewide elections. There's Democrats elected in Lincoln and Omaha, but that's about it. With the Trumpification of the Republican Party, especially in rural areas, Republican office-seekers win in primaries simply by being more Trumpy than the other guy. They don't even need to articulate any kind of vision, just that the Democratic opponent is...a Democrat. Once in, they can do whatever they choose. And since a moderate Republican has become virtually extinct in Nebraska, once they get in, they're going to be more egregiously right wing than previous generations of Republicans. And for the majority of Nebraska voters everything's fine until some of these reactionary laws effect them. 

Warmongers?

Warmongers. That's the current epithet that the Tinfoil Hat Party has been tossing around lately. They like to point out that their guy, President Trump, did not start any wars during his term in office, and incorrectly stated that he was the only one in recent memory to do so. They are accusing Biden of getting us involved in a war in Ukraine against the will of "the American people". 

In principle, I'm not in favor of war. However, I also recognize that sometimes war may be the lesser of two evils. Sometimes it may be absolutely necessary, for instance, if we are attacked. Other times it might not be so clear cut, like when an ally is attacked, or, as in the current war between Russia and Ukraine, support for the recipient of aggression may be the best way to stop the dominoes from falling, to use an old Cold War example. 

Let's take a look first at the claim that President Trump was the first president in modern history not to start a new war. Trump campaigned in part on the promise to end "forever wars". We were still in Afghanistan when he left office, although he had begun the process of withdrawal. When President Biden finished the job, he was criticized by Republicans for doing what Trump had promised to do four years earlier. The military under Trump participated in joint Special Forces actions throughout the Middle East; it went back into Iraq to defeat the Islamic State, assassinated an Iranian general; conducted air strikes in Yemen; conducted a failed Special Forces op in Yemen which resulted in the death of a Navy SEAL (Trump blamed the SEAL for his own death); attacked Syria with cruise missiles; and on and on. This isn't to suggest that any other presidents did any better - President Obama has a similar record, but portraying Trump as a peace-loving de-escalator is pure fantasy. 

When it comes to our nation's participation in war, we have a spotty record. Wars have been started based on lies or misrepresentations. There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and despite his angry rhetoric, Saddam Hussein was never a threat to the United States. We have also have allowed mission creep to keep us involved well past the achievement of our original goals. Afghanistan is a sad example. Initially we overthrew the Taliban government because they were providing a haven for terrorists, in particular the Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin-Laden. (Funny how we gave Pakistan as pass when they were sheltering Bin-Laden) Little by little though, we were preoccupied with propping up a succession of corrupt Afghan leaders and became viewed by the populace as foreign occupiers, eventually leaving the same Taliban, who we had driven out 20 years earlier, in charge. There was always going to be an excuse to stay there and there would always be an undefined standard of what "victory" looked like. 

So what's the deal with our escalating support for Ukraine? Most of the wars and other military actions of late can be boiled down to civil wars. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is different. While not a NATO member, it's arguable that we have an interest in preventing Russia from rolling over their neighbors - if Putin succeeds in his revanchist and irredentist ambitions in Ukraine, what's to stop him from reclaiming hegemony over Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Czechia? Not much. One of the arguments that some Republicans are making is that it's Congress, not the President, which has the authority to declare war. That's true, yet since World War II, no military operation has been accompanied by a formal declaration of war, including such operations, such as the Korean and Vietnam Wars that were very clearly wars. There have been, "authorizations for the use of force" - generally vague pronouncements of support for limited military operations that have been interpreted quite broadly by presidents of both parties to use force as they saw fit. 

Ideally, the president and Congressional leaders could get together and debate the best course of action. House Republicans are accusing President Biden of acting unilaterally against "the will of the American people". But is that what's happening? While President Biden is taking the lead on our support of Ukraine, every penny of aid to Ukraine has been approved by Congress...something to note in an especially obstructive Republican majority in the House of Representatives and an equally obstructive Senate minority not afraid to use the filibuster to gum up the works.  It's plain that a majority of Congress is in favor of at least the level of support that we have been providing. 

In their never-ending quest to say things that they hope we don't check the facts about, the Republican far-right caucus has been claiming that Ukrainian President Zelensky is "threatening" us, by claiming that Americans need to fight and die to defend Ukraine. Is that what he said? Nope. What he did  say was that if Ukraine was defeated, it was likely that Russia would not stop there, and we would be treaty-bound to defend fellow NATO nations if they were attacked. Of course, once this was pointed out to them, their follow up response was declare that we were not bound by international treaties (which, as required by the Constitution, was ratified by the Senate) and should not step in to defend our NATO allies. It sounds like a page from Losin' Donnie's playbook - who thought nothing of unilaterally withdrawing from international agreements, disparaging our allies, and treating our NATO obligations as a mere financial arrangement. 

While there should be an open and honest discussion regarding how involved we should get in Ukraine's defense, and I'm surely not suggesting we take everything Biden says at face value, I'm certainly uninterested in listening to the misrepresentations, exaggerations, and lies from the Tinfoil Hat Brigade.