Malfeasance of Action and Morality

I used to write more in this space about topics such as this, but it lacks the immediacy of Twitter.  This space deserves more thoughtful pieces.  I’ve written about gun control (or the lack of it) and our culture’s love affair with guns in more than two dozen entries.  There will be more as the next mass tragedy is brewing, although gun violence is a daily occurrence, but generally not reported on.  How our elected representatives can ignore the arc from Sandy Hook to Parkland is unthinkable, unconscionable; indeed, a malfeasance of action and morality.  I see the face of Mitch McConnell in my mind’s eye as I write this as he, in addition to Trump, represents the worst kind of pandering to the NRA.  Ballots for bullets.

This is the one year anniversary of the Parkland shooting and as an anniversary it is being appropriately marked, particularly by our local paper, the Palm Beach Post.  If it were not the anniversary, it would be forgotten by our NRA blessed representatives who instead want to shift the problem of violence to refugees who are actually trying to flee to a safer place.  So “build a wall BS” transcends any discussion of violence in this country perpetrated by native born citizens.  Blame any feeling of insecurity on refugees, innocent people on the most part. The rhetoric and the demagoguery of it all boggles the mind, no gaslights the mind, the exact intention of this administration.

I’ve turned to twitter to at least make a statement on this, asking our representatives to look at each and every face of the Parkland victims and read their stories.  Let them never forget these helpless victims of their inaction as they are steeped in rhetoric about "The Wall," ignoring the nation's plea for sensible gun control.

Today’s Palm Beach Post should be required reading for every NRA elected representative and our “President” (who did not even mention Gun Control in his SOTU speech). We dare you to connect a face with every story. What I wrote a year ago: https://t.co/lJpbta3XPZ #Parkland pic.twitter.com/mqjau0Rnju

— Robert Hagelstein (@lacunaemusing) February 14, 2019

“Only I can save you!”

During my publishing career I reprinted Gustav Gilbert’s Psychology of Dictatorship.  He was my professor in 1962, teaching a course of the same rubric during my brief tenure as a psychology major.  He was all business in the classroom, nary a smile, but no wonder what he witnessed.   Gilbert was the American Military Chief Psychologist at the Nuremberg trials, writing the Nuremberg Diary shortly thereafter and later his more academic Psychology of Dictatorship.

I’m reminded of this by yesterday’s bluster of our president, threatening to shut down the government to “save” us from “criminals pouring into the U.S.” and those who are not criminals, at the very least, carry “deadly diseases.”  “It’s my wall or the highway.” Scares the bejezzes out of his faithful followers. 

At Nuremberg Gilbert interviewed some of the head Nazis, including Herman Goering, who confided the following to Gilbert:  “…people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”

How prophetic.

Gilbert, Goering, Hess, Ribbentrop at Nuremberg Trials

Post Midterm Thoughts

So broken: our political system and our way of life.   And still another mass shooting, this one in a CA bar.  We’ve become inured to them by lack of any action, the NRA’s tentacles wrapped around Congress.  There are solutions.  It only takes the will.

Anyone who caught Trump’s news conference yesterday, his firing of Sessions and replacing him with a Yes Man, should understand the fragility of our democratic system.   Demagogues play the Press to their propagandist advantage.  Demagogues demand obedience.

I had only one wish for the Midterms: gain the House, although like most moderate progressives, I was rooting for Beto, Gillum, et al.  Still, I sleepily emailed ebullient messages to a few friends at 3.00 AM declaring “victory” with the subject heading “bring on the subpoenas.”

But I am no Pollyanna, thinking that having control of the House will ameliorate the deep dark political divide in this country.  It might exacerbate it, but as with an operation, the aftermath therapy can be more painful than the procedure. 

We focus on Trump, which is the way he wants it but there are so many systemic issues. Our Constitution is the best political document ever drafted, but it was by 18^th century thinkers. 

The 2^nd Amendment needs updating.  Muskets are no longer the only “arms” that we have the right to bear.

The Electoral College needs fixing or abandonment, allowing the direct popular vote to determine the outcome of Presidential elections.  Slavery and concern that the average person might not be best suited to make those decisions led to the Electoral College.  We need to question its legitimacy in today’s world where information is readily available to everyone.

Similarly, another consequence of the great Constitutional compromise was the one giving each State the same number of Senators, irrespective of population.  I quote what Alexander Hamilton had to say about that in The Federalist below.  Who could have seen what now exists, with thinly populated states such as North Dakota, about the population size of an El Paso, Texas, having the same Senate representation as the entire State of Texas itself, giving the people of ND nearly 40 times the political clout to have their say over Supreme Court Justices, etc.?  Even a greater multiple when it comes to states like NY or CA.

Another bête noir of mine, and thankfully we now have a brief reprieve, is political advertising.  Super PACs representing special interests, as well as extremist political party advertising, are a form of government approved brainwashing, appealing primarily to emotional issues.  We’ve successfully removed cigarette advertising from our airwaves.  Time has come to remove political advertising and endless robo calls (spend the $$ on our decaying infrastructure, or healthcare, etc. instead!).  Make all political discourse over the airways subject to universally recognized debate rules.  If a candidate has something to say, write an opinion piece for local and/or national publication, maintain a Web site expressing plans and opinions.  Aren’t we sick of the political advertising which portrays the opposition as being sent from hell? 

Easier said than done, I know, but we have to do something to separate the democratic process from mass persuasion dollars.  The next couple of months before our new House representatives are sworn in are going to be critical. May we survive those days to get democracy back on track.

The Federalist No. 22 by Alexander Hamilton

Every idea of proportion and every rule of fair representation conspire to condemn a principle, which gives to Rhode Island an equal weight in the scale of power with Massachusetts, or Connecticut, or New York; and to Delaware an equal voice in the national deliberations with Pennsylvania, or Virginia, or North Carolina. Its operation contradicts the fundamental maxim of republican government, which requires that the sense of the majority should prevail. Sophistry may reply, that sovereigns are equal, and that a majority of the votes of the States will be a majority of confederated America. But this kind of logical legerdemain will never counteract the plain suggestions of justice and common-sense. It may happen that this majority of States is a small minority of the people of America; and two thirds of the people of America could not long be persuaded, upon the credit of artificial distinctions and syllogistic subtleties, to submit their interests to the management and disposal of one third.

Not a Time for only Thoughts and Prayers

Las Vegas slaughtering, shootings in schools, houses of worship (let’s not forget Sutherland Springs, Texas and the Charleston, SC shootings) and now eleven people killed and six injured when a gunman attacked the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh on Saturday. We’re told (by our President) that the greatest threat to our homeland security is immigrants and foreign born terrorists.  Meanwhile, what do all these horrific events have in common?  Most are by hate-filled home-grown white nationalists, with large gun collections, frequently brandishing automatic weapons for maximum slaughtering effect.

Is it a surprise that the Pittsburgh killer blames Jews for helping migrant caravan ‘invaders’?   Who first pointed out the so called caravans had some “bad hombres and people of middle eastern descent?” 

Apparently the gunman used an assault rifle and three handguns, among his collection of 21 registered guns. But he was not a big fan of Trump as he felt the President did not go far enough and he was surrounded by Jews.  On the other hand, pipe bomber Cesar Sayoc felt that Trump’s rhetoric was just right.  Our system fails to ring a bell when one person owns 21 guns?

No matter, it’s pretty clear that the political discourse in which Trump has been engaged, particularly at his Nuremberg style rallies, foments division, violence and is intended to feed the fragile ego of a demagogue.   

Instead of building walls at the border, we need to build legislative walls around gun access.  Will it eradicate such shootings, no, but over time it is one of the building blocks of making such incidents less likely.  I’ve written dozens of times about how this can be done. I think the best summary is in this particular entry.

Win the Mid-Terms and begin to challenge the NRA.  Haven’t we had enough of this?