Needs vs. Wants!

 I love oversimplifications. They encourage generalizations. That was one.

In an item I read the other day, a chap from Norway compared his life there to what it was like when he lived in the U.S. for a few years. He noted that he had had heart bypass surgery in Norway that kept him in the hospital and rehab for a few weeks, for which there was no charge. Not unusual in most countries. He complained that they billed him for the parking garage.  

He opined that his government provides what people need. People then pay for what they want beyond their needs. A gross generalization, but the point is made.  

The end of the year is a time for thinking about the old, contemplating the new, and imagining the what-could-be, a time for generalizations. 

Wander with me as I wonder. 

What if everyone in our country had access to great healthcare?  

• Would families with low-income sleep better at night because they know they and their kids would be treated well if they got sick 

• Would homeless people get the mental health care they need, would it lessen their stress 

• Would we not be ranked 35th in child mortality 

• Would we live longer; our average age would not be declining as it did again this year 

• Would medical care not be a political lightning rod 

What if anyone could get a college education, without going into debt?  What if those who wanted to learn a trade could do so without going into debt? 

• Would more people be better educated 

• Would minorities and low-income people have greater access to advanced education 

• Would more people become well-trained craftspersons to build and repair our buildings and equipment, make our machines, or run our factories  

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What if everyone had a decent place to live? 

• Could more families afford decent places to call home 

• Would fewer people be forced to sleep on the streets and in camps around our towns and cities, freezing to death in the cold 

• Could social workers be more effective if their clients were not worrying about where to sleep each evening 

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What if everyone had as much healthy food as they needed? 

• Would fewer children go to bed hungry or go to school undernourished 

• Would families be healthier if they had real food rather than relying on processed food 

• Would malnutrition be an issue in our country 

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What if children didn’t fear for their lives when they went to school?  

• Could parents send their kids to school each morning without wondering if they would ever see them again. 

• Could fire drills in schools be the norm rather than active shooter drills 

• Could guns on school campuses be a thing of the past 

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What if we all had cleaner air to breathe? 

• Maybe respiratory illnesses would decrease drastically 

• We could see the mountains surrounding our cities 

• Clouds of dark smog wouldn’t cover our view of the sky 

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What if everyone had access to clean water in their homes? 

• Maybe families could wash dishes without boiling the water first  

• Maybe families would not have to brush their teeth and shampoo their hair with bottled water 

• Maybe drinking water from the tap would become the norm again 

• Maybe people would be healthier 

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What if our political system worked for the betterment of the people, rather than the daily sound bite and Twitter feed? 

• Don’t get me started 

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Aren’t these just the basics we should expect and have for a good life? In many countries, they are considered human rights. (Maybe not the political thing)  

Someone is bound to ask – how do we pay for it? Won’t the taxes be too high? Aren’t the taxes already too high? One could also ask the government to spend our tax money on things we need before they spend it on things we want. 

Not to overgeneralize but ensuring the basic needs of life for all people isn’t impossible if we want that to be our policy. It isn’t a progressive idea or a socialist idea. It isn’t a liberal or a conservative idea. It’s a humane idea. 

Most states and cities decided long ago that we should be a country of the haves and have-nots. We wrote laws to make it such: single-family zoning, separate and unequal schools, excessive regulation, lack of affordable housing, failure to provide clean water, expensive public colleges, unregulated fossil fuel plants, and the like.   

It’s not an overgeneralization to say that we can do better!  

 

 

 Is it OK?

“…Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over.”[i]

We, our nation, experienced another mass shooting last week. It happens all the time. The world looks at us and wonders; who are we, and why do we tolerate violence? We too wonder why. Nothing happens. We know the solution; we do not want to deal with it. Why?

A mass shooting is an event in which four or more people are killed by a gun. They happen all the time in the U.S. Not so much in other countries.

Through October, there had been:

·       662 mass shootings in the United States in 2022.

·       Six hundred seventy-one people killed

·       Two thousand six hundred sixteen people were wounded.[ii]

It is OK to kill people; it is the price we pay for our freedom we are told.

It is immoral, that is what it is!

There is something about a gun. What is it? It seems different today from years ago. Back then guns were for hunting, target shooting, or skeet and trap shooting. Dads took their kids to the rod-and-gun club to learn gun safety, Boy Scout camp taught gun safety and target shooting along with archery. It did not occur to people to use guns to kill people. Well, except for the gangster element.

A major study in 2015 by Adam Lankford of the University of Alabama found that the only correlation between a country’s rates of mass shootings is its rate of gun ownership.[iii]

·       The U.S has about 4.4% of the world’s population

·       The U.S has 42% of the guns[iv]

Politicians across the country tell us that something must be done because shootings are horrible. Ask them what they want to do about the shootings, and they take you on a trip to fantasy land. Most of the folks left of center want to implement all kinds of restrictions on ownership, knowing they will never be enacted. The folks right of center want to concentrate on the nation’s mental illness crisis, which does not exist. Few want to deal with facts or real solutions.

Those who oppose gun control want us to do something about the nation’s mental health issues to reduce the killings. Others want to add to police forces to reduce crime rates which they say will reduce killings. Study after study shows that:

·       The U.S. does not have mental health issues any greater than other nations

·       The U.S. does not have crime rates much different than other nations

·       The U.S. does not have people more evil than other nations

·       The U.S. has more guns than other nations and they are used more often to commit crimes.

We are told, most often by the NRA, that “Guns don’t kill people; people kill people.” That has a nice ring to it, for some. An alternative might be: “People use guns to kill people.” That may have a hole or two in the argument, but it makes a point.

If we want to stop the killings, we should consider who can own guns and who should not own a gun and the process by which a person can purchase a gun. Ideas like that run into some basic notions that we in the U.S. have about gun ownership, and varying interpretations of the Constitution.

Any proposed limitation on who can own a gun comes face to face with the “they are coming after our guns” catchphrase. There is some truth to that, but …

Let’s dig deeper. Ask ourselves - should felons have guns, should people with mental issues have guns, should those with criminal records have guns, should a spouse who abuses another have a gun, should a child molester have a gun? Should a person who is a danger to himself or herself have a gun? I think the answer to those questions is NO!

Our culture tells us that owning a gun is a God-given right. That makes us outliers in the pantheon of nations. The rest of the world takes the opposite view. In most countries, one must justify the need for a gun and go through an extensive process to prove that they are not criminals, abusers, or molesters and are mentally fit to have a gun. Then they must get a license to buy the gun. These background checks can take months. The point, however, is simple: do a background investigation before the purchase of a gun, not after.

Last week, the shooter at the Walmart store bought his gun only hours before he killed five people and injured many more. He was arrested a year earlier for threatening to bomb his mother’s home. The local sheriff did not implement Colorado’s Red Flag Law to prevent the person from buying a gun in the future and did not report it to the FBI National Crime Unit. The person’s name would not appear on a background check.

Texas recently passed a law allowing the open-carry of weapons without a permit. Other states allow anyone to own a gun and do not send crime reports to the national government so that they can be included in background checks. California has strict laws related to gun ownership. Yet, it reports a lower percentage of crimes to the FBI than forty-nine other states. Forty percent of law enforcement agencies nationwide fail to report crime data in a timely and complete way.[v]

In the last year, there have been seven hundred armed demonstrations in the U.S., and 77% of those were open carry.[vi] Understandably, school administrators and city officials feel intimidated when people show up at meetings in camo and rifles slung from their shoulders. The Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and other white supremacists go beyond local events. They were leaders of the armed insurrection on January 6^th at the Capitol. Many members are now in jail or awaiting sentencing. They claim that they need the Second Amendment to protect their First Amendment rights. Hogwash!

Mass shooting after mass shooting brings the wringing of hands but no new laws. Few elected officials want to tackle the hard job of getting guns off the street, out of the hands of criminals, and away from the mentally ill. Irrespective of the Supreme Court’s ruling, the need to have a gun at home to protect the family is a myth.

At some point, before the country becomes more disjointed, Congress should deal with the issue. They should find a way to ensure that those who truly need guns and gun-sport lovers can have their guns, but they must also find a way to limit ownership to those who should not have one. They could start with baby steps:

·        Implement improved background checks before the purchase of guns

·        Outlaw assault-type weapons for personal use[vii

·        Outlaw guns that carry more than five shells

·        Limit the sale of bullets to fifteen or fewer except at gun clubs

·        Outlaw handguns except at gun clubs

·        Outlaw open-carry laws

·        Outlaw stores from advertising the sale of guns

·        Make licenses to own guns renewable every five years

We can eliminate the killing fields if we want to. These baby steps would put us on track to be as tough on gun ownership as most of the industrialized world. Why has it become OK to kill kids in their classrooms, partygoers in their clubs, Bible study groups in their churches, and people attending outdoor concerts? Why?

Perhaps the British journalist was right: “Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over.

But it’s not OK!

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[i] Dan Hodges, Mail Commentator, June 19, 2015, on Twitter – Referring to the Sandy Hook school shooting “In retrospect…”

[ii] Wikipedia compilation

[iii] Max Fisher & Josh Keller, NYT November 7, 2027

[iv] Ibid

[v] FBI data – Axios November 25, 2022

[vi] NYT, November 2022

[vii] An assault weapon is a firearm that is chambered for ammunition of reduced size or propellant charge and that has the capacity to switch between semiautomatic and fully automatic fire. They are designed for and used by the military. Assault-type weapons are sold to non-military individuals and may vary in design to bypass various state laws.

Autocracy Blinked!

 There was one thing on the ballot in last week’s elections – Democracy.

Yes, there were real people seeking office, but they were stand-ins for the real issue. The candidates represented two very divergent views about America’s future, our way of life, and our institutions. In the end, we are still a much-divided nation on many counts, but more united about the importance of our democracy.

The U.S. Senate is split 50/49 with a run-off election to follow in December for the remaining seat. The House is nearly evenly divided, with leadership still in question. It may be another week before all the election results are tabulated.

 

In nearly every election, even in the “battleground states,” the losers called the victors and publicly conceded defeat. Civility returned to our election process. Sometimes the small things matter.

 

In the “battleground states” every “election denier” who ran for Secretary of State was vanquished. Republicans, Democrats, Progressives, and Independents, divided on so many issues, united to keep our election processes fair. Democracy prevailed.

 A couple of months ago the Supreme Court overturned a basic right that we believed had been settled fifty years ago. The court ruled that the Federal government did not have the authority to enact a law that allowed abortions because that right was not enumerated in the Constitution.

New voters registered by the hundreds of thousands across the country and then expressed their anger at having a basic right torn from them. In five states, voters approved state constitutional amendments and other laws that make abortion legal.

 Dobbs v. Jackson did more, however, than overturn perceived freedom. Two justices suggested that they would support overturning other non-enumerated rights based on the 14^th Amendment. That may suggest the possibility of overturning the right to gay marriage, contraception, privacy, and other freedoms we take for granted. It foretells a possible reworking of the Federal government’s relationship with the States.

Dobbs also puts stare-decisis into question. Our entire legal system is based on the idea that precedent is the compass for judicial rulings. What now?

Thirteen states passed antiabortion laws that took effect soon after the Court ruled against Roe v. Wade. Those laws will provide full employment for lawyers for years to come. It took fifty years for antiabortion supporters to reach the point where the courts were filled with sympathetic judges and justices. and it may take that many years to reverse the trend unless Congress codifies Roe into a national law.

The court’s reversal of Roe raises this question: If a court can tell a person what not to do with their body, can they tell them what to do with their bodies, which is the antithesis of freedom, as we have known it. Italy tried that approach. Napoleon tried that approach. Both needed more men to fight their wars. Both attempts failed.

 Our country has been tossed and turned in a not-so-good way in the last six years. Respect for our institutions was obliterated, our standing on the world stage diminished, and party loyalty was made more important than the common good and a court that demonstrated that basic liberties can be erased ever so quickly.

 David Brooks, a NYT opinion writer, speaks of the start of an effort to build a wall around the Nationalists’ effort to bring an autocratic government to our country. The people voted against extremism. In California, for instance, the proposition to enshrine the right to abortion in the Constitution is winning in districts where antiabortion candidates are winning: democracy over party.

The stakes were exceedingly high in this election because it was about the future of our democracy.

 Democracy won.