Michael McCarthy – RI Future

June 14, 2016

Gun insurance: Read it and weep, gun haters/lovers

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What’s on my mind? Guns. Why would that be?

If you want my nuanced and deeply personal opinion on guns, you can read this: www.rifuture.org/guns-our-uniquely-american-inheritance

Note: In that post I say I love guns; I do. Ever so rarely they are used to kill a really, really tragically deranged and dangerous human being who probably also has a firearm. In some dubious but worthy theory, an armed populace is Dictator Insurance. I subscribe to that theory: despite knowing I would far rather have a crew-served Mk-19 fully automatic 40mm grenade launcher, Afghanistan-style IEDs, an underground printing press and poison 4-star cuisine if I was to conduct myself as a serious member of an effective anti-dictator resistance movement. I digress.

In this post I will say I hate guns; I just did and I do. Welcome to the paradox of being a rights-loving American citizen.

I am going to keep this brief because I am conflicted. I sit on the fence on this one. I am terrible at being a Progressive and even more terrible at being a Constitutional originalist. Nothing makes my blood boil more than bureaucracy, except maybe 50 dead people and a Facebook feed full of rage, CAPS LOCK, hate, fear and discord.

People don’t want to register or surrender their guns because that is a step towards tyranny. Check.

People don’t want to see other people shot, so they do not want guns easily accessible.. or accessible at all! Check.

Here is the solution nobody wants: Gun insurance. Insurance that would be paid by the responsible gun owners, and not the illegal ones. It would be another hurdle towards getting a gun: a clear financial disincentive for holding onto them. It would bring in some monetary and bureaucratic blocks to high-risk individuals getting them and especially in keeping them. It would be another liberty-reducing and paperwork-spawning law that would stand between us and the infinitely tricky task of having to learn not to hate each other to the point of murder. No apologies for the snark. I am not the guy who thinks fear gets anything accomplished ever, regardless of the appearances of progress.

Also there is always the whole purpose for human existence thing. There is the nagging question about what our relationship to our fellow human beings is, and what it portends to be standing next to an alien stranger. There is the individual mandate given to us all at birth to discover the answer to what some recognize as the first big question: are we are supposed to be each other’s keeper? In answering that, maybe we can figure out what, if anything, can be done about our deranged fellows who are consistently and rapidly being pressed into the lunatic fringes of society and choosing to repeat a rather ancient and disgusting act.

I hate to tip my hand. This is truth for me; we are not safe and we never will be. We are not safe with the guns, and we are not safe without them. We can hedge against violence with violence, with law, with love especially. However we will never be entirely safe. We have to confront this whole ugly mess courageously. I find myself yelling at the mirror on that one, so I can understand why everyone is stomping and freaking out and demanding some change.

Back to the bad idea:

Insurance would be paid out to victim’s families, a rather small consolation at best, yet the insurance procurement process itself would add to the paper-shuffle necessary to get one’s hands on a gun. According to some, there is evidence to show that hurdles to ownership reduces total deaths in shootings. I am not going to bother to get you a link, because I get a headache just thinking about all my gun-toting friends having to pay additional insurance because they have a few flags on their demographic. Insurance would also be a de facto gun-registry without that registry being necessarily in the hands of the government, though I have no reason to believe the government would not easily get its paws on the insurance rolls if necessary. A simple enforcement-check provision would instantly create that opportunity. So there is your gun registry.

Another fun fact about insurance: it doesn’t give a damn about equality, and can be used to discriminate against people without repercussion! For instance, if it is statistically true that such-and-such are better drivers, you can oppress people with a bigger bill!

Implementation would be messy. Some non-empirical hunch of mine says that the gun insurance would pass Constitutional tests easier than a ban on particular weapons, magazines, etc., and more importantly has a reason going for it other than plain fear. Naturally there are numerous readers here whose prefered solution is to elect a Democratic President in order to appoint judges who would dilute the Second Amendment. That is one way to go. Fire away!

There is an old tradition in this nation to pass laws and set policy that makes nobody happy. Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, the Affordable Care Act and Clinton/Gingrich’s Welfare Reform all come to mind. I despise all three, but the consensus seems to be that bad ideas are better than no ideas, so I offer here another half-measure that stands a slight chance of getting progressive readers what they want: less killing, and more aggravation for gun owners.

Here are your links for some discussion on this topic:

http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/08/opinions/yang-gun-violence/

http://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/uncucumbered/mandatory_gun_insurance_a_practical_plan_to_make_america_safer

http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2015/05/foghorn/breaking-democrats-introduce-national-mandatory-firearms-insurance-bill/

October 2, 2014October 3, 2014

Guns: Our uniquely American inheritance

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The capacity for violence that was the midwife of our nation is turning upon itself. What are we to do about our guns?

I have a gun problem. And so do you. I have a love of guns, but you probably don’t. I don’t own a single gun, but you might.

When my father died, he left me nothing but a broken down truck and a beautiful gun-safe full of guns in the far off land of Las Vegas, Nevada. I was off to Afghanistan when he died, and I was back from war when I chose not to accept my uniquely American inheritance. Only in America would such an inheritance be possible – or more importantly – applauded by many. I passed.

My father’s slow death was a tragic and fucked up experience for me, but it ended up being a special parting gift from my father. In dying, he inadvertently prepared me for the incredible bullshit on the horizon. Dad withered slowly over the course of many months, and yet he did miraculously get the timing right; I happened to be stationed in the deserts of California, not far from my old man – close enough that we could spend his last days together. His death was a final lesson, and I think Dad would be happy to have his son say that he died teaching him a lesson – even if that lesson was to do something entirely different with my life.

After whatever training the Marine Corps and Navy hefted on me and fellows, I’d scurry away as fast as I could from my temporary home in Twenty-Nine Palms, California, hopping in a cheap rental car and roaring the solemn 3 1/2 hour drive across old Route 66, and then on upwards to Las Vegas. I think I made this drive over a dozen times in the months leading up to the end, listening to satellite radio, chatting with far away friends, and crying. I’d pull in to my father’s rental home, a cheap spot in a a deeply Hispanic side of town. (There’s a Sinaloa chicken joint nearby that I highly recommend to you.) I parked next to his busted, camouflaged International Scout II, which sat alongside a neglected motor home once-purposed to take his best friends to the drag races.

Dad kept his friends close. Close enough that he gave a few of them the combination to his gun safe, for emergencies’ sake.

Now, this is Las Vegas. This is a place full of vice, and full of shifty real-world friends.

So, just weeks before my Dad died, he had a pistol stolen from him. It was a nice one, a 9mm Glock that was relatively new to his arsenal and which he was especially prideful to own. I was present at the moment he realized it was missing. He was skeletal at this time, and had gotten up to show me something in his safe that I ought to know was important (I think it was paperwork.) At that point, he realized something was amiss, shuffled around a few things, and then suddenly shuffled around everything. He was afraid, exasperated, and finally heartbroken.

I was incapable of doing a damn thing, which meant that I said something like “its okay.” It wasn’t. My dad was right that it wasn’t. The whole fucking point of the safe, and of friends, and the guns, was to be safe, and to protect loved ones. Whoever fucking stole his gun obviously didn’t get the point. But, that’s not what my dad said. He collapsed on the bed after a few hours of grief. His grief wasn’t that life was ending for him, since he was a fighter and certainly not willing to admit that at the time, but was instead grieved that there were only a few choice friends who could have stolen that damned gun, and all of them were well-loved. But were they trustworthy? No. There was at least one that was an addict, maybe more. At least one that could have stolen it. How did he know? Because the gun was gone.

It is difficult for me when I talk to my friends, acquaintances and strangers about their firearms. Often I don’t tell them my father’s story, but when I do, it is because they are new to owning guns. They are usually happy to get their first, but at a loss as to how to deal with the seriousness of owning weaponry. They buy into the many responsible ways to mitigate the danger, as my father did. My father, for all his faults, was a reasonable gun owner. On the other hand, many friends initially just chuck their new AR-15 in a closet, hopefully with some kind of locking mechanism, and hope for the best. My dad did this for nearly 20 years and never had a problem. Ironically, even after doing the right thing and getting the safe, he still had that handgun stolen.

The firearms in question never came into my possession, nor were they even technically willed to me. I wasn’t up for owning them in the first place. But even if I was, the laws and paperwork would have likely been too byzantine for me to have navigated them. I often wonder whether it would have been worth getting the gun safe, just to give it to a friend who could use it. I wonder even more, after having seen a few people shot in Afghanistan, whether it is that 9mm Glock, and not any tens of thousand of others, that was picked up in a Nevada pawnshop and used to put a hole in some child somewhere. I often wonder whether or not anyone takes their rights seriously, anymore. I wonder whether culture, and not commerce or law, can make a difference to make these many tragedies less likely.

I’m a Second Amendment guy. I’m a First Amendment guy. Worthless statements, but worthy in action. I do not use the 2nd Amendment (I will not own a gun,) but I support the rights of others to own guns. I’d just rather they didn’t. I do use the greatest invention of the previous millenium – the right to speak and be heard freely. I am far more proud to be a loud-mouth, than a gun owner. As someone who has spent far more time wondering what to do about a bullet-wound than what to do with a gun, I wonder whether or not people are ever going to fight nearly as hard for healing and prevention.

Submitting to the majority is not the American way of life. For those who hate guns, more power to you.

May 23, 2014May 24, 2014

Surveillance or education: which is a better use of technology

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What to do about our government surveillance problem? This post is about ensuring that our children get to live in a free world.

Step One is relatively easy: we turn the NSA’s Utah Data Center into the world’s next Great Library.

I’m not kidding.

The forces that labor for our security are not composed of evil people, but yet they can not prevent themselves from sitting far outside the functions of our democracy. They have lied to Congress, and lied repeatedly to the American people and especially the people of the world. When their efforts to maintain security are successful, their work is a victim of its own success. They lament this problem, but they do not put in any real effort to democratize their role in society. Since whatever they do is never brought to public debate except through high-profile leaks, we are forced to assume that what they are doing is evil.

And in fact, what they are doing is evil. It is evil not because of the character of its creators, but instead because these behaviors poison the well of democracy itself. It smothers a free people to be watched and listened to. Even when it is not us that is under surveillance, it destroys our credibility to have such immeasurable power over others. Much like the atom bomb before it, the imbalance of power that we Americans have in the world makes us the defacto police state. We fiddle with a sword of Damocles, dangling it over the whole world, both free and otherwise. In doing so, we are inviting our neighbors to participate in their own arms race, goading them into gobbling up our communication and dangling a sword of their own over us.

We’ve moved into very dark territory with technology, as dark as unlocking the atom ever was. So what can we do about it?

The answer is simple. We harness this immense monster we unlocked for a public good. We can set a gold standard for civilization and retool a few of these weapons and hammer them back into plowshares. We can take a $1.5 billion data center, and use it to store the best of what the world has to offer, rather than the worst. What to do with it? I don’t know. Only a public discussion of what we can do with a yottabyte of storage could yield a decent answer. Surely we could use it for advanced research, or as an auxiliary to the Library of Congress.

But what we must not do, is let that facility sit there in Utah and store the communications of our neighbors. That is a disgusting and inhuman act, regardless of its motivations. There is a point at which we have to learn to behave as decent people if we are to pretend to have any moral authority in this world.

So if anyone wants to start a campaign to make that facility the next Great Library, I’d be happy to start it with you.

April 28, 2014April 28, 2014

Exactly what policy would Ken Block push to fix campaign finance and corruption?

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Ken Block is appealing to voters that he is the incorruptible candidate – or at the very least, that he believes strongly that the other candidates are far less ethical. Sound the trumpets! Ken Block is the cleanest candidate! He has taken swings at Mayor Fung for taking money from labor groups with whom he negotiates. Yet Ken’s campaign is firing shots at the recent People’s Pledge as well:

I appreciate that Ken is taking a stand of some kind, but to my knowledge, little has come from Ken’s campaign regarding what broader policy changes he would push for if he gets to be the governor. It seems he’s going to lead by example:

“As Governor I will not accept any contributions from anyone who will be negotiating directly with the Governor’s office.” Ken is swearing off the cash from labor groups and private contractors of various kinds in a broad swing at corruption. These groups will not be allowed to give money to his campaign, and presumably while he’s in office. Big statement! We’ll come back to that in a second..

But the real problem goes pretty deep. First of all, both Ken Block and Clay Pell have never sat in office the way that candidates Raimondo, Fung and Taveras have. I don’t see it as coincidence that the newcomers are raising the “follow the money” banner highest; it is all too easy to do so when you’ve never had to negotiate with all the many parties who stand to benefit, or suffer, at the hands of a decision you make as a chief executive. That doesn’t mean I dislike either Ken or Clay for emphasizing clean elections – – I just know that its not so simple.

The “fix ’em up” newcomer is a perennial spectacle in American politics. The dark horse has dealt with far fewer yucky realities, including an often devastating trail of influence, due or undue, accumulated from years of hard-fought handshakes and horse-trading. I have no doubt that Fung, Taveras and Raimondo have been influenced by contributions from various groups and individuals. Like it or not, that’s how this Republic functions – especially under our current regime of campaign finance, where those with dollars can soak their favorite candidates in cash with barely any functioning restriction.

So back to “Governor Block.” What will he do if so titled? Apparently, he will not take money from those whom the governor’s position influences. He says negotiates directly.. But that’s EVERYONE! Everyone in this state is affected by the choices of the chief executive, and thus there really isn’t a single dinner party, donation or even volunteer hour that can be fully divorced from the realities of governance. Yes, Ken says only those he negotiates with directly, and surely that’s an ethical step forward, and I applaud it here:

But again, there is no free lunch as a politician. People want you to make certain choices, and if you lean in their favor, they’ll green it right back at you.

And that’s the hardest part. If you don’t pledge your way our of taking “dark money”- then even as a candidate Mr. Block – you will be stuck working with a whole lot of it (and I think you know that.) It is the only way the big guns can help you out, and without good accounting of where those dollars come from, Joe Public is stuck fearing the worse. Thus, even if you’re as ethical as Susan B. Anthony, the smell of hidden money will rot the trust of the public. As a result, the change you stand for turns out to be bunk.

So unless candidate Ken Block wants to help institute public financing, or be a voice to tackle issues at the national level, we’ll remain stuck with outsiders and insiders unduly and easily influencing our governance, much to the detriment of real local debate and good policy. The People’s Pledge might not be perfect by any means, but it is a signed document. I would like to see the Republican candidates sign onto it themselves, and barring that, at least come back at us with real policy or signature legislation. It is possible to solve a big chunk of this problem right here in lil Rhody. For me, what separates Ken Block from Clay Pell is that Clay has put his John Hancock on the paper – not to mention calling for the pledge in the first place.

That’s leadership! I need to see some of it from the Block campaign if I’m to be convinced that real reform is on the march in Rhode Island.

April 12, 2014April 12, 2014

Linc Chafee: ‘Civility for a Great Society’

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Prudence and pragmatism are perhaps the dirtiest words in politics, and I feel like nothing speaks to this problem more than our treatment of Governor Lincoln Chafee. I’m a big perpetrator, or at least have been until recently, of the acrid cynicism that propels apathy in the process and disgust in the people. This disarms any hope of informed working solutions to the perennial problems of governance – boring and complicated budgetary concerns fall victim to the emotional extremes of our ideology, doing little to advance what passes for public dialogue. I’ll raise my hand and be the first to say I’m guilty of this kind of laziness.

I forget how I stumbled on this video of Linc giving a speech at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, but here it is:

It is a long video, but its great if you want a quick take from Chafee’s perspective on the recent history of our two major parties: the role of LBJ in scuttling the longstanding dominance of Democrats in Congress for the sake of the Civil Rights act, along with some interesting takes on the massive Bush tax cuts. This includes Linc being joined by John McCain in voting “nay” thanks to the sunset provisions that are considered by some to be fodder for campaign finance-oriented corruption. Prior to that, at the 6 minute mark, you can hear Linc defend the Occupy Movement. He goes on to talk of the realities of income inequality and other shibboleths you might appreciate. Even though he exaggerates the severity of the 2011-2012 winter, I can’t help but be thankful someone didn’t miss the overall point.

At 37 minutes in, the Governor misses a chance to respond to a question about the Rhode Island Primary Care Trust (perhaps he is not informed enough to hazard an answer.) For socialized medicine proponents, it is interesting to note that the UK’s NHS has been going through some tough times under restructuring by the conservative coalition government, and are abolishing these same entities in a bid for privatization.

Since I don’t expect many people to appreciate my love of Lincoln Chafee, I won’t bother to defend him as a practicing politician. I’m hoping that he finds a nice ambassadorship somewhere, or some other dignified way to step out of the scrum that guys like us, with a bit too much empathy, simply can’t survive.

March 26, 2014

Back to basics

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I’ve tried hard not to get into the squabbles of our time, and failed – I’m too juvenile to accept the principles the current conversation is predicated on, yet too foolish to stay out. Another self-deprecating way of saying it would be that I’m too ignorant or lazy to know where to begin, and most importantly, when and how not to. Even when I think I know where to start, it still feels pretty futile.

Well, I think I know where to begin this time. I’d like to show you two quick things:

As Feds trounced into our now-busted Speaker’s office, Justin Katz asked the following on Twitter:

“@NBC10_Parker Silly question, but I can’t help but wonder: Do they knock when they do that, or just stroll right in?”

What Justin was really asking was: “Are the bastards being civil?”

Another one from a year ago: As a bleeding Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was being arrested in a backyard somewhere in Boston, and for dubious reasons wasn’t immediately read his rights, Saul Kaplan had this to say, again on Twitter:

“Read this kid his Miranda rights. We are a nation of laws.”

I’m a decidedly different human being from Justin, Saul, Gordon or Dzhokhar. I walk, like everyone else for that matter, to the hopeful beat of a different drum. My cadence is one that I have a hard time appreciating, but I remain ever thankful I am not a Dzhokhar or for that matter, a Gordon. What is important to note is that we are all citizens – residents with rights and responsibilities to this strange republic. With Tzarnaev the exception, all of the above are also Rhode Islanders who give a damn. Despite the ambient psychosis that comes with being a member of this complicated community, we believe in its core values. We really do. Even when we don’t agree on what exactly they are, why they are, or who embodies those values best, we still share them. We struggle to honor our principles even while we question them – so sometimes, when we’re all in crisis, the scales fall off of our eyes and we can see them clearly in one another.

I’ve been focusing on those values for a while now, to the exclusion of almost anything else that might pay the rent. For me it is all about coping with what this country is, and what it is not. It all came to a head for me, as you might guess, after coming home from Afghanistan. It has taken a few years for me to let go of the crumpled wrapping paper that once conveniently concealed the lunatic shame of it all. It’s been a pissed-off rager of a battle for me ever since, one that has broken me as it has broken many folks who can’t bear to call it even or call it quits. The result is that I am no longer afraid, but instead rather empowered, when I meet anyone who’s touched the dark matter of politics and lived to remark about it. We really need you people!

Those tweets have that special basic substance that makes this struggle worth it. Their depressing context might have us believing that we’re aboard an ill-fated cruise, but their content shows us that we needn’t look for icebergs if we know we already hit one. What we must do instead: make eye contact and start with the basics. We need to agree to take a long look at what we generally take for granted. In a year like this one, we can’t afford not to. We can leave it to history to see who was right or wrong (since no one will ever agree on that anyways!) but we can not leave it to history to honor each other. It is time to dig deep and hit the books together. We have to do it anyways.

We will end up forgotten. Our devotion to the precious basics that we do share, will last.

February 12, 2014

Thanks for standing against domestic spying, Congressman Cicilline

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It is rare for me to call my elected representatives, and rarer to call them allies. Like many Rhode Islanders, I swim against a tide of cynicism.

However, Congressman Cicilline, whatever brand of patriotism has motivated you to oppose the NSA and its spying, for that patriotism you have my own honor in accord. I am with you.

I am quite unsure whether or not the rest of our delegation will do what you have bravely done: co-sponsor and support the USA Freedom Act in order to limit, and hopefully soon end, these flagrant abuses of power by the NSA and other surveillance programs.

For you, sir:

I will never forget, and will forever cherish, the day I witnessed our Congress, your Congress Mr. Cicilline, an edifice I had long given up on, rise up and strike against a beast that grew in darkness. You, our public servants so often estranged, had a special fire in you. I saw, perhaps for the first time in my adult memory, an unlikely coalition of fearful friends struggle to defend the dignity of their people. This was no fool’s errand; it spoke to the heart of what we need from you now. More than ever we need it, from all your fellows!

We may have missed by twelve votes then, but not this time. We have a better bill, and a more focused will to fight.

Remarkably I find myself with a renewed faith that, in the ever-darkening halls of public office, there may remain enough principled people to make these, the toughest of decisions: those that may cost us the cheap domain of comfort, and they, their own seats of power, all to alleviate the real suffering of another.

I am with you, sir, as nothing secures our common dignity but our willingness to be vulnerable. Together! May those who feel otherwise be banished to the safety of their small hearts and soulless thrones. We all suffer for our inaction, so thus let us bear the burden together, at once, and abolish these programs of suspicion, torture, and murder!

For the reader: please consider reaching out to our other delegates in Congress, Senators Reed and Whitehouse, and Representative Langevin, and to all who will listen. Implore them to fight back against this regime of unwarranted spying and data collection that threatens our privacy and self-respect as a society. Support the USA Freedom Act! Follow this issue and those most difficult to come. Dearest reader, we cannot afford to do otherwise, and so much more remains for us to bear.

In earnest, for his protection of our common liberty, let us thank Congressman Cicilline for his service.