The liberal case against gun control

Gun rights are not just compatible with, but an important component of, a liberal, progressive, freedom-oriented approach to American politics. I am not going to getting into debates about the pros and cons about specific gun control measures, in order to focus on the broad theme, which is that American progressives should abandon our sometimes widespread embrace of gun control because it is in fact antithetical to our values and interests.


A liberal opposition to gun control stems from the following four basic principles, which I will address in turn:
1) The connection between guns and freedom
2) Respect for the Bill of Rights
3) Respect for cultural pluralism and individual lifestyles
4) Political considerations

I hesitate to include item #4, because in some sense it muddles the argument. However, I do believe it is an important point so it is included.

1) The connection between guns and freedom

Ever since guns first allowed a peasant’s musket ball to fell a knight from his high horse, firearms have been indispensable in the sweeping movements and changes over 500 years that brought the masses of western civilization from feudal serfdom to free citizens. The nascent notions of individual religious and political rights that were formed with the Dutch Republic and the English Civil War were a result of, and dependent on, ownership of guns. Without individuals being armed, and the popular rebellions that they allowed, the Netherlands would have continued to suffer under the yoke of Spanish Inquisition and the England might still have an absolute monarchy. History would not know the names Spinoza, Huygens, Locke, Milton, or Newton.

It was guns that allowed American pioneers to settle and live on the shifting frontier, getting a new start as free men in the new world and sending a collective ‘screw you’ to stagnant and oppressive European socio-economic structures from 17th century England to 19th century Russia. It was an armed citizen militia that met the redcoats of imperial domination at Lexington and Concord, striking a crucial blow for freedom.

But that’s all in the past, what about today? Now that we live in a political structure where the state (supposedly) guarantees rights to individuals, aren’t these notions outdated? “Gun nuts” always like to talk about how guns continue to protect individuals against excessive state force, a notion which is completely mocked by gun control advocates. “How is your rifle going to stop a government tank?” they ask, with derision.

However, individual ownership of guns is still one of the best bulwarks against totalitarianism. No, guns aren’t going to stop a tank, but they do put a check on the extent to which a secret police state can operate. Remember, the oppressive regimes of the 20th century, from the Nazis to the Soviets to the East Germans, didn’t so much use tanks to keep their population in line as they used secret police, the threat of arrest, and a vast political prison network. They relied, more than anything, on police being able to come in the middle of the night and take people away without any resistance or commotion, and this is the one thing that guns are very effective in preventing. How long would these regimes have lasted if their populations were armed and the governments’ didn’t have a monopoly on force? Probably not as long. One oft-cited example is the Warsaw ghetto uprising, or the internment of Jews in the Holocaust in general – imagine if those people had stashes of arms from the start rather than having to steal guns from German troops. They may or may not have been able to save themselves, but they certainly would have been able to strike a crippling blow to the Nazis.

All of this may seem remote from our experience as Americans, but I think it is seeming less so now that our infinitely corrupt and evil administration allows secret tribunals, torture, and indefinite secret detentions without habeas corpus. I don’t know about you, but if it gets to the point that US secret marshals, all graduates of Bob Jones University's school of criminal justice, start coming around to arrest everyone who has ever watched Bill Maher or shopped at Whole Foods (you know, for homeland security because 911 changed everything) I want myself and others to be able to fight those secret police rather than passively accept the fate of a lifetime of torture for my family in a Haliburton administered re-education camp. I think you do too.

2) Respect for the Bill of Rights

If you want the freedoms guaranteed to us by the Bill of Rights to remain, you can’t pick and choose which amendments get to stay. If you think that ‘times have changed’ and that the Second amendment is outdated now that we have more powerful guns and live in cities, well, there are plenty of people out there that think that the First amendment is outdated now that we have internet pornography, and that the Fourth amendment is outdated now that we face serious international terrorism. Times have indeed changed, but what makes us free, adherence to the Bill of Rights, hasn’t. The “times have changed” argument is the slipperiest slope there is, and if we start abridging the Second amendment because we are disgusted by a shooting, then we will lose it all.

Gun control advocates often point to the ‘well-regulated militia’ part of the Second amendment and claim that it does not protect individual gun ownership. However, it is firmly established time and again that the intent of the founders was indeed to guarantee this right. Just as the fourth amendment says nothing about Miranda rights or phone tapping, and the first amendment says nothing about prayer in schools, we rely greatly on interpretations of the intent of these amendments for our freedoms.

Yes, there will probably be more shootings in a world with the Second amendment than without, just as there will be more violent music in world with the First amendment and more murderers going free in a world with the Fifth and Sixths amendments. But these are the necessary prices that we pay to live in freedom.

3) Respect for cultural pluralism and individual lifestyles

It may be a tautology, but people who support gun control generally do not own guns. That statement is silly, but the point is that I have noticed that gun control advocacy is often (but by no means always) informed by a certain cultural elitism.

People who live in affluent, safe communities seem to be the staunchest advocates for gun control. But we are a pluralistic country, and not all of us live, or want to live, in White Plains, or Rockville, or Thousand Oaks, or Sunnyvale. Millions of Americans live in places where a home invasion robbery or a bear breaking through the screen door are more than just abstract possibilities. These people by and large want the right to own guns and feel that they are an important component to protection. It is not the place of others to pass judgement on their lifestyle, at least not in the legal sphere.

Yes, the statistics show that homes without guns are safer and so on, but people have the right to make their own choices. This is fundamental to liberalism. Just as we feel we shouldn’t use the law to control people’s personal behavior in regard to sex or drugs, the same applies to guns. This is a hobby and a lifestyle to many people, and as long as they do not hurt others they deserve the respect of the law. In the same way that we support the right of consenting adults to do whatever they want in the bedroom but still believe that rape should be a serious crime, we should support the rights of adults to own firearms but treat actual gun crimes against others harshly.

4) Political Considerations

As I mentioned, I hesitate to include this reason for fear of muddling the more important philosophical arguments above, but I think it is also important.

Gun control is an electoral loser. It is driving millions of natural members of the Democratic coalition to the Republicans. To paint with a broad brush, many “gun nuts” are working class and distrustful of government excess. Especially in light of Bush administration antics, they are potential Democrats. But they feel the hostility of many Democratic politicians to their lifestyle, and of course this is exacerbated by NRA propaganda.

We will never make inroads with the Cheney bird/face hunting set, but this one issue is keeping millions of other sportsmen, hunters, and enthusiasts from making the Democrats a permanent majority party. Even if you are still inclined to support gun control on a philosophical level, isn’t it more important to regain power for the sane folks to deal with existential issues like climate change, health care, veering from the path of theocracy, and economic competitiveness?

In the end, of course, ‘gun control’ is not a binary issue but has shades of grey. In this diary I have not come down for or against an assault weapons ban, or background checks, or conceal and carry laws, or anything specific really. In the same way that we compromise between totally free speech and yelling fire in a crowded movie theatre, we must do the same with gun rights. However, I hope that we as liberals see that it is in our tradition and interests to err on the side of freedom and away from control.

The Definition of Terrorism

A mere definition seems like a trivial topic for a blog post, but I believe that in the case of terrorism, it's vital. Certainly without understanding one's enemy, conflict becomes mysterious and unpredictable, like a game of Mao, only with millions of lives at stake. However, unlike Mao, since the stakes are so high, there are additional confounders in the form of deliberately misleading propaganda, as well as confusion introduced by intense emotions.

Most people have a “gut” definition of terrorism. This is the definition we see in play at the level of national discourse, used by news anchor-bots and politicians, as well as your batty aunt Mildred. To wit: there are certain acts which are “terroristic” in nature (suicide bombings, kidnappings for ransom, etc); terrorism is the commission of a terrorist act. Furthermore, since certain kinds of people are typically the ones committing terrorist acts (e.g. Muslims, especially Arabs), when in doubt you can look to group membership to sort things out. For a moment, set aside from the blatantly racist and historically ludicrous nature of the last part, and focus on the central issue: there are terroristic acts. In practice we may have a list of some acts, but why are any of them on the list? What if I kidnapped Bill Gates' wife for ransom? Most people would say that wasn't a terrorist act ---clearly motivation matters. At some point, governments (and most interested people) try to come up with a definition that isn't merely a list. And that's when the trouble begins...

The U.S. definition of terrorism, from Section 2656f(d) of Title 22 of the U.S. Code:

the term "terrorism" means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against non-combatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents

Now at least we see some rationale for including different acts on our list. Kidnapping Bill Gates' wife for fun and profit presumably isn't “politically motivated” (unless you're the notorious terrorist, Linus Torvalds). However, something strange has snuck its way in there: the phrase “subnational groups”. This is not an accident. The stipulation that nation-states -by definition- can't be terrorists is hotly contested, because it amounts to no more than a “it's not terrorism when we do it” clause. Yet most (perhaps all) governments have a strong motivation to put in place such a clause.

In 1985, when I was the Deputy Director of the Reagan White House Task Force on Terrorism, they asked us [...] to come up with a definition of terrorism that could be used throughout the government. We produced about six, and each and every case, they were rejected, because careful reading would indicate that our own country had been involved in some of those activities. ---Edward Peck

Indeed, it's tempting to claim that the greatest president in U.S. history might have more than most to fear from a honest, natural definition of terrorism, considering his support for the School of the Americas and the Contras:

Rosa had her breasts cut off. Then they cut into her chest and took out her heart. The men had their arms broken, their testicles cut off and their eyes poked out. They were killed by slitting their throats and pulling the tongue out through the slit. (a Sandinista militia man quoted in The Guardian, via Wikipedia)

However, that isn't fair, as there's no evidence that Ronald Reagan was any worse than other presidents.

So early on, we encounter a brutal reality: we all have an instinctive idea of what terrorism is, but when we try to make that idea precise, we find that nearly everyone is guilty of it. It is precisely this problem that has prevented the adoption of a universally agreed-upon definition of terrorism at the U.N. You should read their brief synopsis of their attempts. As an alternative to the ideas prevalent at the U.N., some (including Edward Peck) advocate abandoning use of the word “terrorism”.

Instead, I would like to wade into this mess and offer my own suggestion. Adopt the most basic and natural definition possible: “terrorism is any action carried out with the goal of furthering some agenda by instilling fear”. Then simply accept the fact that virtually any conceivable military activity is terroristic in nature to some extent. A bomb strapped to a militant fighter and a bomb dropped from an F16 inspire the same terror. All military campaigns have some terroristic aspect ---if that was not so, a country could become immune to the threat of attack by eliminating its military and thereby denying enemies "legitimate" targets. In reality, of course, the result would be the massacre or enslavement of the populace by anyone who found it in their "interest". Those of us living in powerful, stable countries may have forgotten about the terrorism inherent in warfare, but it is there, and has been appreciated since the dawn of time

In times of siege Timur’s tent was hung with white banners the first day, to indicate to the people within the city that they might surrender and be spared; with red the second day to show that if they surrendered now their leaders must die; with black thereafter to warn them to look for nothing but burial (Arab historian Ibn Khaldun)

Of course there's a huge difference between terroristic acts carried out by states, and those carried out by sub-state militant groups ---raw power. State actors like the U.S. can realistically conceive of exterminating all their enemies, and thus their terroristic tactics (e.g. “Shock and Awe”) take on a supportive role. By contrast, for all their bluster, neither Al Qaeda nor the various Iraqi insurgent groups can actually kill all the Americans, and thus terrorism takes on a larger role in their strategy.

So ultimately, what is the point of this quibbling over definitions? Exactly this: much effort is wasted on questions like “Why are these people so evil? Why do they engage in terrorism?” With the proper perspective, these questions can be seen for what they are ---red herrings. Their answers are simple: “They're evil because they're your enemies. They're engaging in terrorism because they're fighting you.” The real question, the one who's answer can be used to avoid (or if necessary win) conflict, is “Why are these people fighting us?”

Tap-dancing on his Grave

Today the corpse of Jerry Falwell was found in an un-raptured state. Since Falwell, a noted follower of Ass-Kicking Billionaire Jesus™ had no known enemies except sausage, natural causes are suspected. Preliminary reports suggest that a wad of irony may have lodged in his heart. Reached for comment, Jesus said:

Today we learned the tragic news that I had taken
Jerry Falwell before his time. Jerry was a tireless advocate of Me, working his whole life to aid the rich, fight science and rationality, end unprofitable peace, and crush tolerance for powerless and oppressed minority groups. Unfortunately he was also an advocate of biblical literalism, and therefore I am reluctant to announce that he will be spending eternity in the Lake of Fire. His secret programs to build the world's largest needle and breed the world's smallest camel have not progressed fast enough to allow this rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. It's in the bible, so my hands are tied.

A visibly emotional Satan held an impromptu press conference

What the Hell? It's no accident this place gets bad press with Christians, but they just keep showing up anyway. What do we have to do to keep these guys out? Seriously, we've had to open up, like, three new levels just to deal with clergy.

Asked if he had any advice for the Rev. Falwell, the Prince of Darkness said, "Guys like him aren't popular here. Keep your mouth shut. And don't drop the soap."

Psychiatric Drugs: The Modern Lobotomy

While it pains me to agree with someone who fears the galactic overlord Xenu, Tom Cruise was right when he said that there is no such thing as a chemical imbalance. These days critical views of psychiatry come across as hysterical and anti-science. Conventional wisdom is that the dark days of psychiatry’s past (drowning, electroshock, chemically-induced seizures, sterilization, and frontal lobotomy) are long behind us. With the advent of “anti-psychotic” drugs, modern psychiatry has found the cure to diseases of the fractured mind.

In fact, I don’t believe it would be a hyperbole to state the psychiatry in the United States today, in terms of both scale and methodology, is an abomination of science and personal liberty. And I say this as a scientist, as someone who believes the scientific method is the best way to improve human knowledge and quality of life.

It is a telling fact, in terms of psychiatry’s ability to abuse the mentally ill even in “enlightened” times, that the last lobotomy performed in the U.S. was in 1967. The discontinuation of this psychosurgery had less to do with society’s revulsion at the drilling of ice picks through an unconsenting patient’s eye sockets and more to do with the invention of a so-called “chemical lobotomy”, chlorpromazine (Thorazine) and its chemical cousins.

The advent of neuroleptic drugs (often called by the inaccurate name antipsychotic, despite the fact they “cure” psychosis in the same way a coma cures a headache) changed the face of psychiatry in a sweeping fashion. But has it been for the better? In fact, patient outcomes in the U.S. have actually declined since the advent of these drugs, and a person diagnosed today fares as poorly as someone diagnosed in 1900. A particularly damning piece of evidence comes from the WHO’s 1992 International Pilot Study of Schizophrenia. This study found that, surprisingly, patients in poor countries had far better outcomes than patients from rich countries. A follow-up study confirmed this: 64% of patients from developing countries were doing fairly well at the end of two years, compared with 37% from developed countries. This is telling because most patients in developed countries are treated with neuroleptic drugs, while most patients in developing countries are not.

This alone does not prove that the drugs are the cause of worse outcomes for the most “scientifically advanced” countries. But it is damning evidence when combined with other studies which reveal 1) neuroleptic drugs leave the patient more prone to future relapse, 2) these drugs have a host of common, irreversible side effects, and 3) these drugs are known to cause permanent brain damage.

Standard neuroleptic drugs target the brain’s dopamine system, while the newer atypicals arrest the serotonin pathway as well. This is not light stuff. Dopamine is instrumental in movement, motivation, and pleasure. When dopamine systems are damaged, the effects can be acute and irreversible. Some side effects of neuroleptics mimic Parkinson’s disease. In fact, it is estimated that two-thirds of patients treated eventually develop “persistent Parkinson’s”. Tardive dyskinesia is also extremely common, and it can affect 5-8% of medicated patients per year. A few decades of “treatment” nearly assures that a patient will develop permanent symptoms, which include repetitive, involuntary movements of the face, arms, and legs. And that’s just the side effects.

Patients today are being treated with drugs that, while they may temporarily relieve psychotic symptoms, are more likely to leave them chronically ill and vulnerable to future psychotic breaks. And they are told that these drugs cure a chemical imbalance in their brains. This is a claim that is provably false. Pre-medication, schizophrenics do not have a dopamine deficiency. MRI images of “schizophrenic brains” are presented as evidence that schizophrenia causes brain damage. It’s true that these images show a progressive deterioration during the course of the disease, but this is deterioration caused by massive amounts of psychotropic drugs, as it is not seen in the mentally ill who are not so drugged!

But aren’t there studies which show the efficacy of these drugs? Short-term: somewhat; long-term: no. A few facts first: This is big business. These drugs are top sellers. The FDA does not test drugs the drug companies do (or rather, a for-profit industry serving the drug companies tests the drugs). When the patents on the first generation of antipsychotic medications ran out, drug companies rushed to market new “atypical” drugs to maintain their profit margins. And the pseudo-science here is astounding. Optimal doses of the new drug were tested against excessive (even harmful) doses of competing drugs. The placebo groups were routinely abruptly withdrawn (“washed out”) from their old medications (this is extremely dangerous and some patients committed suicide as a result; these deaths were omitted from the published studies). Thus placebo groups were contaminated with withdrawal symptoms. In hubris typical of the field, patient outcomes were judged by psychiatrists, and patient voices remain entirely absent from the literature. (Even lobotomy was considered to have successful outcomes at the time speechless, incontinent patients were no longer psychotic.) Schizophrenics are said to lack insight, which seems to be a clinical way of saying that they cannot judge a drug’s effectiveness themselves.

The abuses of psychiatry are many. Here is a final story that I hope will move you: the Soviets also used many of psychiatry’s inventions to torture their dissidents. These included wet packs, insulin coma, and seizures induced with metrazol. But the torture most feared was the use of neuroleptic drugs. Vassily Chernishov wrote that a person so treated “loses his individuality, his mind is dulled, his emotions destroyed, his memory lost… as a result of the treatment, all the subtle distinctiveness of a person is wiped away… Although I am afraid of death, let them shoot me rather than this."

Fuckers.

Recommended reading: Mad In America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and The Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill (2003), by Robert Whitaker.
The sources for this well-researched book are available here.

Beverages at Airports

I'm so mad. I'm full of rage!

The last time I was in an airport I of course could not bring a beverage inside. Not even a can or bottle of juice. So I went to buy some, once I was past security. $4 for a bottle of ocean spray! Normally a dollar. And they can get away with despicable shit like that too since they know no one has a gun in there. The terrorists have won.

I'm writing to congress.

Shouldn't this be illegal?