Trumpopulists: what will be the priorities?

There is often a logic, beneath shrill jeremiads. For example, Ted Cruz has proclaimed that even one more liberal or moderate justice appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court might shift the reading of the Second Amendment (2A) — does it give private individuals an unlimited right to own guns, or reserve that right only to members of a militia? 

(Go read the amendment and come back. In Heller v. D.C. the court went with Red America’s wishes by one vote, one interpretative vote. Moreover, let me shudder and add that Cruz is probably right about this one thing. The swing between those two interpretations is very likely to teeter for our lifetimes and more. But in railing about the near-term, he and his followers ignore the long term implication –

-- that the Second Amendment, as currently worded, is by far the weakest in the entire Bill of Rights.  If this court or the next one does not reverse Heller, then it will inevitably happen when some huge national tragedy strikes. That’s called the “Ratchet Effect” (see The Transparent Society), and you are behooved to plan, during good times, for what you’ll do at some future crisis, when the public is scared.

If today's political rightwing were rational, it would be working right now to gather consensus for a new Constitutional Amendment that might protect weapon rights far more firmly than the ambiguous and inherently frail Second. I have elsewhere described just such an amendment, which could actually pass! Because it offers some needed compromises to liberals and moderates – some positive-sum win-wins - while protecting a core of gun rights more firmly than 2A.  

In fact, this begins a long list of possible compromises that might help left and right wing populists get some of their favorite wishes, while giving up things they deem less important. It used to be called “politics.”  Consider trying it, some time.

== My consolation, if Trump gets the GOP nom ==

There are several silver linings to Donald Trump. Oh, I am fretful, for sure. In fact, one of those argent glimmers – that Trump likely does not believe even ten percent of the pandering things that he rants – is as dismaying as it is encouraging.  

One thing is as certain as sunrise. As nominee, he will charge to the center with dazzling, roadrunner agility, leaving it to VP nominee Huckabee or Rubio or even Cruz or some other shrieker to keep the confederates from bolting.  As president he would prove both more moderate in policy and vastly more of a sociopathic fibber than even Richard Nixon. 

Want to know in advance one key moment that could deeply discomfit GOP elders – indeed, that they dread? As nominee, Trump would battle Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders very hard. Nastily hard. And yet, at some point in the summer and autumn debates, he is almost certain to say: “Of course the rich pay too little tax!” 

And thus, with both nominees agreeing, on live TV, that needle would shift, hard. At long last, with almost a consensus sigh, Supply Side Voodoo (SSV) will be finished, precipitating the first of several convergences of left- and right- populisms.

But the biggest silver lining is simply this.  A Trump nomination will make George F. Will’s head explode. 

Mr. Will’s almost-daily rants against Trump are a sight to behold and I confess to gleeful schadenfreude over this bona fide American traitor’s discomfiture. No citizen of this republic was so well placed to denounce and possibly arrest the hijacking of conservatism by monsters, bent on destroying U.S. politics, one of the key problem-solving skills we need, for a fast-changing era.   

Will had the intelligence to see that Supply Side was voodoo, utterly disproved by  thirty years of diametrically-opposite outcomes. He has known for two decades that the War on Science (and journalism, teaching and all other knowledge castes) was destructive and that the Hastert Rule - against GOP pols ever negotiating in good faith - was outright treason. Faced with the Fox-Limbaugh dumbing-down of American conservatism (financed by oligarchs, many of them foreign, who have no love of Smithian-flat-fair-competititve capitalism), Will at-best occasionally whimpered, then went back to his flack-lackey task of concocting rationalizations for oligarchy.

This man – this one fellow – could have led a rebellion by conservative intellects to save their movement from Manchurian captivity. It would have been fun! Historically memorable and possibly rewarding… though risky. A real man – and Will has had the nerve to lecture at us, over the years, about manhood – might have accepted the challenge, for the good of his nation and civilization. Indeed, for the good of American conservatism, whose descent into frothing, carpet-chewing hydrophobia can be laid squarely at his feet.

Oh, oh, this will be my solace when I see Donald Trump accepting the Republican nomination. To envision George F. Will swallowing that pill.  Reaping the whirlwind that he helped fanatics, foreign meddlers, junkers-lords and quislings to sow. The know-nothing tide and criminally re-ignited civil war that he abetted, using his substantial intelligence to help inflict dogma-rabies upon a nation of pragmatic, problem-solving citizens.

== Delightful asides ==

Oh... For those of you calling Marco Rubio the great hope of “moderates” in the Republican Party, have a look at what he says about “God’s Law always winning over “ even the U.S. Constitution. Those clutching at Sen. Rubio as the great hope of Republican "moderates" - a man who would throw a 13 year old girl into prison for cleansing herself of any residue, a week after being raped - only show how deep into depravity even Ronald Reagan would call the "moderate" wing of his party.

By comparison. This stunning piece of rationalization from a Jordanian journalist asserts that Saudi Arabia has been devastating Iran, crediting a Saudi Prince with ending Iran’s nuclear program and calling low oil prices a deliberate Saudi gambit to crush the Iranian economy.  In fact, the article is worth reading! In order to see a weird perspective, and to glimpse some aspects re the War in Yemen of which westerners are mostly-unaware.  Still, the entire screed is absurd.  Oil price plummets had nothing to do with Iran.  That the price drop has cut wages to Shiite radical militias is good, of course, but the end of economic sanctions and ending the drain of a bomb program will both stimulate the main, non-radical elements in Iranian society.  Meanwhile, who has the most to dread from Iran rejoining the community of nations, no longer crippled by sanctions?  The Saudis, you bet. 

== Bernie vs Hillary ==

Okay, Bernie went up one notch in my estimation: Sanders would instigate a 0.5% tax on stock trades - to reduce speculation and high frequency stock trading.  If Congress whittled it in half, that’d be just right. See elsewhere my own riffs on why such a transaction tax is utterly essential… including a sci fi reason Bernie won’t mention. I’m still not sure he is my first choice to be president.  But boy am I glad he is out there raising lots and lots of policy boldness to our political attention and horizon. For the record, Clinton also supports a transaction tax.

Sandersites and Hillarites, go ahead and argue.  But if you start copying the "passion" and hate we see on the Confederacy side, then we are doomed. Stop it!!  Whether Hill or Bern win the nom, they will tell you to replace emotion with iron-willed logic, the way the Union was less frenzied and more logical, when America won vital, earlier phases of this civil war.

If Hill wins and you still kinda dislike her?  Then turn to a local congressional or state assembly race in which your passion can make a huge, local difference, while grudgingly murmuring "I guess I'll vote for her." And  "it's the Supreme Court, stupid."

Clinton supporters, make the same vow! Our confederate neighbors are in a science-hating psychosis that is now 100% dogma and 0% facts.  Their screeching rage denies all ability to look at ACTUAL OUTCOMES across GOP vs Democratic presidencies.

Do... not... be... like... that. We cannot afford it.

== Your Halloween Costume - plan ahead ==

Pay attention to Spike Lee, one of our smartest myth-spinners.  He gets the power of symbolism, even when only a few percent “get it” consciously.  Take a look at the photo of Spike being interviewed in early 2016.  His cap is no mere accessory.  It is a “kepi” worn by Union soldiers during the Civil War.  Four (and also I believe eight) years ago, I urged that folks consider making this their Halloween costume, at minimum, but I was premature.  Now is the time.

(Hey Spike! Come out with your own line of kepis! Offer them for sale!)

From 1852 till 1865, America suffered horrible betrayals not so much by a region as a cancerous mindset – feudalist, rancorous, and utterly devoted to romantic oligarchy – rule by plantations lords – for whom a million poor whites willingly fought and suffered and died, striving against their own best interests.  

We are now in a later, re-ignited phase of that same Civil War.  And make no mistake, this is not purely regional. 

As Matthew McConaughey’s new movie “Free State of Jones” will portray, there were many, many believers in the Union and our Great Revolution against feudalism, all across the south.  Many of them took up the cause, wearing that blue kepi.  I pray that we get through this phase of our Civil War without resort to arms – only a couple of the phases were violent, though all were painful.  Elections are best! Still… get the hat. 

Guns vs Cameras - which are "equalizers" that can prevent tragedy? Plus transparency news

The most recent mass-shooting tragedy sets into stark contrast two national misfortunes.  At surface, they seem similar -- crazed gunmen opening fire on citizens and lethal misbehavior by a minority of bad cops. But in several important ways, the trends are diametrically opposite.

First - random shooting sprees by deeply sick civilians seem to have no end in sight. Over half of the world's deadliest mass shootings that have occurred in the past 50 years were in the U.S., whose citizens are 20 times more likely to die of gun violence than those of other developed nations.  Limiting easy access to weaponry by psychopaths is one blatantly obvious path. So would be courageous investment in education and mental health...

... but the top Roseburg police official mentioned another option we should add to our list of responses. Said the local Sheriff regarding this shooter: 'You will never hear me mention his name.’  Indeed, soon after, the community at-large responded by adopting this approach. 

At last! I have only been proposing this for 20 years.  See my article on the Erastratos Effect: "Names that live in infamy. Killers want notoriety. Let's not give it to them."

But to be fair and honest, all of this will just nibble at the edges. In one of the most sad-but-clever satirical gambits, The Onion simply re-posts its gun violence article with updated locations and dates, each time this occurs, with the same title: "No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens." Go read it and laugh while you cry, knowing you will read it again and again, in the future....

== Commentary ==

If I may offer a few of my own spins on our most recent tragedy?

-- First, an extra bit of sadness for me, as Roseburg featured in my novel The Postman. If you know the topic of that book, ironies redouble.

-- Second: across all of these morbid tales, it's worth noting that in not a single case has the perpetrator been brought down by an armed civilian bystander... not once. Ever. Though that is precisely the incantation that the NRA uses, while promoting the Campbellian notion of a gun-lugging population. Voodoo, only surpassed by Supply Side "Economics."

In fact, many mass-shooters have been brought down by heroic  un-armed bystanders - like those three young Americans aboard that French train, a month or so ago - who bravely charge the lunatic, usually while he is changing clips. Of all the NRA's insane positions, their fierce opposition to limits on clip and magazine size is the most criminally culpable, without a single justification in defense of normal gun owners. Only... let me swivel and point out that they do not have a monopoly on craziness here.

-- Supporters of Gun Control share some blame! Dismissing their opponents as "gun nuts," they show no inclination to study the deep underpinnings of the "slippery slope" argument that motivates Second Amendment supporters to oppose even the most reasonable reforms.  This despite the fact that political victories are best won by peeling away moderate pragmatists on the opposing side.

If you take the time to dig deep, you'll find a possible way to get around this obstinacy - and peel off moderates - by offering a fair trade. (Especially since any fool can see that the 2nd Amendment - as currently worded - is by far the weakest in the Constitution. Some day the phrase "well-regulated militia" will be interpreted more strongly! Gun fans need to start negotiating now, for a better amendment.)

But someone has to drop simplistic sanctimony first -- getting practical. And you know it will not be them. See this laid out in detail... along with a pragmatic proposal to give all sides what they deeply need. 

In sharp contrast... the apparent wave of cop-on-black violence on our streets, while tragic, is not an acceleration of the problem, but a sign of good trends taking hold! Because the spread of cameras in the hands of civilians -- protected by recent declarations by the courts and the Obama Administration -- is now giving the poor and minorities... and good cops... at last the 'ammo' they need to start getting rid of bad ones. 

Cameras are proving to be the Great Equalizer that guns were supposed to be... but never were.  (See this forecast on p. 160 of The Transparent Society (1997) and in EARTH (1989).)

One of these trends - while tragic in each case - offers hope for the future. 

The other makes us all want to tear our hair out.

== What's your rating? ==

And... the transparency wars continue!

One to five stars for you? Of course this had to come. Launching soon:  Yelp for people: You will soon be able to rate anyone you have interacted with on this new app: with reviews and star ratings assigned to "your exes, your co-workers, the old guy who lives next door. You can’t opt out — once someone puts your name in the Peeple system, it’s there unless you violate the site’s terms of service. And you can’t delete bad or biased reviews — that would defeat the whole purpose," reads a review in the Washington Post. The launchers of Peeple say they will ban racist and sexist comments, as well as profanity and hateful comments. Yet, announcement of this app has raised a storm of protest on the internet, with potential legal woes down the road.

The good news? This will light a fire under creating real reputation mediation services, a potential billion dollar business – and don’t let anyone tell you that reputation companies already exist. Currently, they are jokes.

== Your data: Sold ==

Want an entertaining jeremiad? Then swing over to the latest from Gregory Maus:  How corporate data brokers sell your life, and why you should be concerned: 

“For nearly two years, media coverage of the NSA has been near-constant, over concerns about the extent of their data collection on people around the world. But, there’s an even larger behemoth in the shadows gathering information about you. Unlike the NSA, they are accountable to few laws, very little accountability, and no oversight, laughing off investigative inquiries at even the highest levels of government. This is a massive ecosystem, with an insatiable desire to learn every detail of your life and then sell it to those who would use it to persuade you. In effect, it’s a sprawling black market—and as one would expect with a black market, many of the purchasers of this information are criminals who are using it to steal the identities and valuables of many. We can only hope that they’re the worst of the buyers.”

Without any doubt, this is an industry meriting application of searing light and scrutiny.  For example: “MEDbase 200 was selling lists of rape victims for 7.9 cents per name, as well as similarly-priced lists of those suffering from HIV/AIDs, genetic diseases, addictive behavior (conveniently broken down into sub-categories like gambling, sex, alcohol, and drugs) and dementia. The listings were taken down soon after Dixon’s testimony.”

But… isn’t that the point? It was sufficient for such behaviors to be seen for them to be stopped.  To whatever degree they continue, it is precisely proportional to the degree they can get away with it, in secret.  Indeed, that is the only anodyne or answer. It is wholly necessary and wholly sufficient.  Well, almost wholly sufficient. What is not needed is panicky legislation to shut info flows down, with the best of privacy-protecting intentions.  Those selfsame laws will inevitably be used to shelter the very miscreants they are meant to stop.

We need to empower people (or their NGO pallidins) to see better, so they can perceive patterns of info abuse and bullying and apply deterrence upon those who would do such things with our information.

== Vanishing your data ==

And finally... Xerox PARC engineers have developed a chip that can explode into teensy little pieces as part of DARPA's Vanishing Programmable Resources project. Yes... explode.

Who’d want that?  Self-destruction of chips is central to the goal of securing data from thieves — criminal or national. Someday, this chip could be used to keep, say, encryption keys needed to access sensitive data. The self-destruction process can also be triggered not just by a laser, but also via radio signals or a physical switch.

Does this conflict with my goals as “Mr. Transparency”?  Nonsense.  Anyone who thinks that simply has not bothered to read or understand.