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.  

Sensible Tax Reform, Wealth disparities.. and Gun Control

I haven't opined on politics for a while, but recent events compel me to go back to that blather-well.  Some time soon I expect to comment on the Boston Bombing and the myriad implications for our looming transparent society.  But for now…

1) Sensible Tax Reform?

It appears that Republicans in the U.S. Congress are veering away from the (politically) dangerous ground of entitlement reform, even though President Obama has put on the table an offer to let them have something they long demanded -- a reduction in the inflation adjustment for Social Security and Medicare, plus possible even the Bowles-Simpson age-adjustments.  It seems that (as happened with Obama Care) the GOP finds nothing more loathsome than when the opposition says, "Okay, we'll do it your way. So let's make a deal."

Instead, reports suggest that the GOP leadership in the House is leaning toward attempting Tax Reform, with the aim of eliminating almost all deductions, in exchange for a dramatic lowering of tax rates.  Read up on this, because it will raise a firestorm!  And the attempt will run into the same forces that stymied tax simplification for 60 years… a coalition of powerful interests who -- though hating each other -- will join forces to protect their sacred cows.

As it turns out, I have long suggested an extremely simple approach that would avoid this pitfall, by simplifying first and then  dealing with political matters second.  It sounds impossible, but it is actually rather straightforward, if only we tried the method called "No Losers Simplification."

Easy, logical and blatantly sensible… and do-able because it has a trick to keep everyone calm from the git-go. So, what d'you think are the chances?

Oh, a final note on U.S. taxes. How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing. Intuit has spent millions lobbying to keep tax season miserable.

See also: Part of the "Fiscal Cliff" Solution: The Best Tax Simplification Proposal.

2) Are things getting better?

Optimism is so out of fashion these days, on both the left and the right, that  - ironically -  a guarded optimism has become the natural state for any genuine contrarian. I could try to ignore that reflex and stay true to my natural dour cynicism.  But facts are lining up with those who see light at the end of the tunnel. For example, I often cite Professor Steven Pinker's proof (The Better Angels of our Nature: Why Violence has Declined) that on average, per capita levels of violence have declined steeply (if unevenly) around the world every decade since 1945.

Now Oxford University has released  a study that breaks down human well-being into a ten-factor "Multidimensional Poverty Index" that encompasses nutrition, school attendance, access to clean water and electricity and so on. While there are many laggard zones of misery (e.g. Ethiopia and Malawi), there are also zones where recent good news has been  very strong. For example, if the study’s 'star' countries, Nepal, Rwanda, and Bangladesh, continue to reduce poverty at the current rate, they will halve MPI in less than 10 years and eradicate it in 20. These leaders are followed by Ghana, Tanzania, Cambodia and Bolivia.

In truth, I have my doubts in some ways.  There is a certain level of "take-off" development that is fairly easy to get rolling when dynamic people are allowed to strive effectively for their families under honest government that  blends top-down investment, infrastructure and care with a looseness that encourages enterprise, under predictable and reliable law. Hernando de Soto's reforms in Peru showed that a mix of liberal and libertarian measures can have stunning positive effects that neither could achieve alone.  (Defying simplistic fools who demand we choose only one wing of the lobotomizing "left-right axis.")

Still, there are many pitfalls, like endemic corruption, plus the fact that every phase presents new problems, as China is finding out. As we found out.

But that's just me, trying hard to remain cynical... and yet forced -- as I was while writing Existence -- to conclude that we are a bright species.  And our natural condition is a brilliant insanity called hope.

3) The New Great Divide

Oh, but then I turn and see trends that threaten to wreck it all!  Like the ongoing train-wreck demolition of the egalitarian "American Dream."

Wealth disparity in the US hit its lowest levels during the generation after Franklin Roosevelt, with the booming of a healthy middle class and the flattest society ever seen (when it came to matters like social class)… all of it during the healthiest market entrepreneurial economy in history, amid unmatched economic growth that lifted nearly all boats and enabled us to finance bold new projects like space, science and civil rights.

Alas, since 1980 we have seen a trend back toward the steeply pyramidal social structure that dominated in 99% of societies that had agriculture and metals. Now the trend is accelerating. It took off since 2001 and continued in the first two years of recovery.

From Pew Research: A Rise in Wealth for the Wealthy, Declines for the Lowest 93%:

"From 2009 to 2011, the mean wealth of the 8 million households in the more affluent group rose to an estimated $3,173,895 from an estimated $2,476,244, while the mean wealth of the 111 million households in the less affluent group fell to an estimated $133,817 from an estimated $139,896.

"The upper 7% of households saw their aggregate share of the nation’s overall household wealth pie rise to 63% in 2011, up from 56% in 2009. On an individual household basis, the mean wealth of households in this more affluent group was almost 24 times that of those in the less affluent group in 2011. At the start of the recovery in 2009, that ratio had been less than 18-to-1."

Which raises a pertinent question to ask our conservative friends. Is there ANY wealth disparity that would cause some of you to admit that "Class Warfare" has historically been waged top-down, and that pattern always tries to return? Our parents' generation knew the answer. President Obama spoke of his love for his Kansas grandparents who both served in World War II and who pretty much raised him.  The "Greatest Generation" that defeated Hitler and overcame the Great Depression -- they adored FDR and re-elected him by huge margins. Not in order to destroy capitalism, but to save it. From the enemy that always, reliably ruined free and fair competitive enterprise -- and freedom -- in 99% of all human societies.

Those who today have one supreme goal... to portray FDR as satan ... they stand with the oldest and most pervasive enemy of freedom and yes, the foe of market capitalism that Adam Smith denounced and against whom the American Founders rebelled.  Is there some point when you would recognize that old foe?

Hint: it is not a dogma or doctrine, or any particular group of people.  It is a drive that fizzes out of most of us, when we find ourselves atop a pyramid. A drive to thereupon grab the power to stay up there. By cheating.

But it gets worse when 40% of the world's wealth is controlled by less than 150 people. How does competition happen when our lords own a higher percentage of the wealth than the French aristocracy did, in 1789?

4) Interesting political miscellany

Have any doubts about my comparison with the French Revolution? Read about the most expensive real estate on Earth - One Hyde Park, in London - where apartments sell for almost a quarter of a Billion dollars, to secret shell corporations that disguise the owners from the nosy masses. That's a "B" in "billion."

Plus…..

And shifting over to provocative potpourri... The most religious states show highest rates of anti-depressant use.

Does this really surprise you?  The origins of the Tea Party - and climate denialism - in the  tobacco industry. (See also Merchants of Doubt, by Naomi Oreskes and Eric M. Conway, as well as my article: Distinguishing Climate "Deniers" from "Skeptics.")

Lipstick on a pig? Reince Priebus gives GOP prescription for the future.  Sorry. I miss Barry Goldwater and William F. Buckley, true conservative intellects who enjoyed high-level argument and science, who reacted to bad outcomes by changing their minds, and who above all believed in negotiation.  Even, occasionally compromise. If Mr. Priebus and his colleagues ever decide to get serious, the great result will be to stop Barry Goldwater spinning in his grave.

Oh, but then - when you least expect it - sanity appears to be flowering in one area, at least, and some Republicans are leading the way!  California GOP Representative Dana Rohrabacher's Respect State Marijuana Laws Act (H.R. 1253) is far from the only bill in Congress that would wind down the federal war on weed.  But unlike the efforts of liberal Democrats who want to remove marijuana from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act, this bill or something like it may have a decent shot at passing in the not-too-distant future.  I can't believe it.  This madness seems finally to be ebbing. And if that insanity can ebb, let's work on others?

5) And finally, regarding gun control...

Did you notice that for a decade liberals were quiet about this issue?  And even now,  spurred by stunning tragedies, all most of them are asking for is background checks and a restored limit on assault weapons.  Why so little?  Simple.  Under Bush, many liberals started quietly arming themselves. Despite noise from some irredentist lefties, many liberals (a totally different species) are fine with responsible and accountable weapon ownership. Like their own.

If we are going to debate an issue, let's start with clean facts.  Yes, Mother Jones has a left-ish perspective.  But this set of graphics (Challenging the Myth that Guns Stop Crime) is effective when they take on some of the fibs being told by the NRA.

Again, I claim the middle ground. Frankly, I am more sympathetic with moderate gun owners than Mother Jones is. In fact, many liberals and moderates understand the undercurrent motive that makes the gun folk dig in their heels… a fear of eventual confiscation of all personal weapons.

A fear that I go into, with some evenhandedness and detail, in my article, The Jefferson Rifle: Guns and the Insurrection Myth.

I've said it before.  Simply screaming aloud the second half of the Second Amendment will not make the first half go away.  And that first half (twelve words) will serve as a loophole wide enough to drive a bulldozer through, if some future panicking public and a new Court decide to "well-regulate" the "militia." You guys need another, better amendment. And I am offering one that liberals would help you to pass.

Again, most Americans don't wish to eliminate personal gun ownership, and would join in rising up, if it were ever tried. They simply want more responsibility and accountability, the very thing that we achieved with motor vehicles....

But the Slippery Slope Syndrome poisons so many issues on the national agenda. Look at it.  Face it.  Then do the unexpected.  Negotiate.

Renaming Killers -- the idea spreads

Folks have been writing in, ever since I posted the latest version of my "Names of Infamy" essay.  In fact, during just the last few days there has been a noticeable media swell - - a growing movement not to mention the name of the Aurora/Batman shooter.

As reported by Molly Hennesy-Fiske of the Los Angeles Times:  "Jordan Ghawi, 26, of San Antonio became frustrated by how much of news coverage focused on the 24-year-old Holmes. 'Let us remember the names of the victims and not the name of the coward who committed this act,' Ghawi tweeted Friday afternoon. The tweet went viral. When some Twitter followers noticed Holmes' name trending on Twitter - something Ghawi said bothered his mother - they started a campaign to promote (a victim's) name instead."

On Sunday, Mr. Ghawi made his pitch directly to President Obama, who chose not to mention the shooter by name, in his public remarks.

Not a new idea, this worthy notion goes back to the last century, even long before I proposed it publicly in Salon Magazine (1999), describing the "Herostratos Effect" in which ancient peoples would sometimes expunge the names of those committing heinous crimes.

The pros and cons and means of doing this in a modern context, while preserving full memory, accountability and freedom of speech, lead to some interesting possibilities.

Although my most recent posted version of the Herostratos essay led to some radio time,  I imagine Mr. Ghawi and the others thought of this notion independently -- and more power to them! Good ideas sometimes take time, before finally gaining traction.

Still,  the intellectual/historical side of things may be of interest, if this idea is to build momentum and become a factor in solving a terrible human problem.

=== The absurd nostrums on "gun control" ==

My "names of infamy" proposal is actually quite separate from another matter -- the endless tussle over gun control.

And yet, the two topics inevitably get conflated at a time like this. At least, they were in a flood of emails, comments and assertions on facebook, twitter and this web log, proclaiming that "this sort of thing brings out  hordes of liberals campaigning to eliminate the Second Amendment and gun owner rights."

Speaking as a Smithian libertarian, but one who finds liberals worthy to talk-to, may I respond with a simple request? Will someone please show me this campaign?  Point to specific bills, or sustained efforts, even solidly backed proposals with even a slight chance of enactment.

They don't exist.  And this simple little cartoon from Tom Tomorrow sums it up neatly.

Only one serious gun control notion is getting even tepid mention: to restore the requirement that people get checked out and licensed before blithely purchasing full-on assault rifles with mega-sized magazines.  The very law that would have prevented the Aurora shooter-nut from easily acquiring his means to spray mass death.

That rule was passed, way back in the sane 20th Century, by an old thing called negotiated consensus between sober democratic and republican leaders... a pragmatic measure that led to no "slippery slope," nor any decay in reasonable gun-owner rights. Alas, it was flushed away by the later, crazier breed controlling Congress in 2005.

Now before you call me a lefty nut, please pause for perspective: those who denounced the assault gun licensing requirement  -- and who howl now against its restoration -- seem to have no problem with the ongoing, 70 year old rule against private ownership of full-scale machine guns. So then, it's just a matter of where you choose to draw lines, right?

See my essay, The Jefferson Rifle: Guns and the Insurrection Myth.

Raising this question: when one whacko can kill or wound 72 people in a couple of minutes, so quickly that no brave bystander gets a chance to tackle him, isn't that a "machine gun" style situation? Can you contemplate that maybe - just maybe - your line-in-the-sand may have been drawn just a tad too far? Is it possible to rediscover the sane art of pragmatic compromise, without fainting away or screeching in dread of a Slippery Slope?

I have shown a possible national compromise that would be a win-win... actually strengthening the constitutional guarantees of basic, essential gun ownership, while at the same time allowing pragmatic measures to be taken that reduce some of the worst calamities... all without a slippery slope.  (That is, I have shown it to the half dozen people who still have both curiosity and the patience to read careful arguments. If you choose not to actually read that proposal, please don't gush forth generalized comments here, about what you presume it to be.)

Anyway, it's all much, much simpler than that.

The Slippery Slope does not exist. Not anymore.  It's a fantasy. And I can prove it.

The fact is - and, again let me remind you that I say this not as a "liberal" but as a Heinleinian-Smithian Libertarian - the right seems completely unaware of a seismic shift that happened under G.W. Bush --

-- when many liberals started arming themselves.

Yes, they are. As is their perfect right.

Now tell that to your crazy uncle and watch multiple expressions pass across his face, as it sinks in.