Month: July 2012

Aurora, Colorado, And The Right To Keep And Bear Arms

Samuel Hooper3 Comments

I have now had the time to read and digest a lot of the immediate responses to the horrific shootings in Aurora, Colorado.

Some people (President Obama, Mitt Romney) have sought to explain, unify or heal.

Some people (Louie Gohmert, Brian Ross) have sought to make political hay out of the events.

Yet others have urged everyone to reserve their words and judgments while so many details of this terrible story remain unknown, and while the wounds and bereavements are so raw.

But I have yet to hear anyone – supporters of gun rights, or the interpretation of the Second Amendment that permits them – utter a statement such as this:

“Guns are an integral part of American history and culture, and the right to bear arms freely is enshrined in our nation’s constitution. On occasions, people who legally and legitimately own weapons will tragically misuse them, either through mental illness or malicious thought, and turn those weapons on themselves or on others. The twelve people who died in Aurora, Colorado yesterday were irreplaceable and will be missed, but they also represent a part of the sad, heavy price that we pay to live in a free society that upholds the right of individuals to own and carry firearms.”

If you do support the right to bear arms, surely this is what you actually think? Massacres and individual shootings are awful, but taking away the right of 300 million Americans to defend themselves against aggressors or a potential future tyrannical government is more awful still? No?

If you support a policy that has potentially negative adverse effects (such as removing benefits or subsidies from certain groups – family farms, long-term unemployed, those on sick leave) you should have the courage to own the bad as well as the good and have the guts to explain why the human benefits outweigh the human costs. As a conservative-leaning voter living in the UK, I have to do this all the time at the moment in today’s supposed “age of austerity” and government spending cuts. Supporters of individual gun ownership should do the same. No more mealy-mouthed phrases about “guns not killing people, criminals killing people”. No. Own the consequences of your policy position. Wait until the dead from Aurora have been buried, and then prominently proclaim something to the effect of the paragraph that I wrote above.

Some people say that the aftermath of civilian massacres or other high-profile gun crimes is an inopportune time to discuss the laws controlling the ownership and use of firearms. I say that taking that view is the height of cowardly avoidance – when else to discuss gun laws, regardless of the position you hold, than when their consequences are being felt most deeply?

I’ll nail my colours to the mast right here and now: I believe that individuals should be allowed to own guns suitable for recreational hunting or self-defence. That means shotguns, handguns, pistols, revolvers, tasers and nothing much more. No grenades, no semi-automatic weapons, no armour-piercing bullets.

However, I also believe that the second amendment, properly interpreted, does not currently permit gun ownership at all – a “well regulated militia” no longer being “necessary to the security of a free state” in any sensible modern worldview. Therefore I believe that a constitutional amendment is both necessary and desirable in order to enshrine the right to own firearms for the strictly limited purposes that I have outlined above.

Yes, I recognise that this position probably puts me at odds with everyone – strict gun control advocates and gun rights supporters alike, for different reasons. But at least I have put on record what I think about gun ownership, and why (not just cheap soundbites about liberty, the constitution and so on).

Let’s see the NRA and other advocates for even looser restrictions on gun ownership do the same.

A Side Of Moralising With My Chicken, Please

Samuel Hooper2 Comments

I love Chick-fil-A.

Their fried chicken is great, perfectly seasoned and cooked just right. The waffle fries are out of this world. So is the sweet tea. The dips are actually tasty, and worthy of having such awesome chicken dunked in them (the barbecue and honey mustard are particularly good). The staff are consistently the friendliest, most courteous, helpful staff you will ever encounter at a fast food restaurant. They employ someone to greet you with a warm welcome when you walk through the door, and they walk the restaurant topping up your soft drinks for free if they notice your cup is getting low (did you hear that, British restaurants? Free refills! Try offering them!).

In short, they are pretty much everything you could want in a fast food restaurant.

Which is why this story, reported by Politico, is so irritating. The article reads, in part:

The fervor over the restaurant’s politics began when Chick Fil A president Dan Cathy said earlier this week that Chick Fil A is “guilty as charged” in support of “the biblical definition of the family unit.”

It really annoys me when companies stumble into the news cycle in this way. Whether it is Target donating to a group that benefitted an anti-gay marriage candidate (even though it is fairly certain that they donated for reasons other than this), the CEO of Whole Foods penning an Op-Ed critical of President Obama’s health reforms, or now Chick-fil-A being dragged into the gay marriage debate, it is all quite unnecessary and seems to bring out the worst (and, incidentally, un-American) aspects of supporters and detractors alike.

Now the three examples above are not identical. In the case of Whole Foods, the CEO wrote his “ObamaCare alternative” op-ed in a personal guise, though coming out and writing a political op-ed piece contrary to the likely views of the vast majority of your customers is certainly not very wise. In the case of Target, they made a donation to a group that supported candidates who promoted pro-business policies that they agreed with, but failed to do their due diligence to ensure that none of the beneficiaries espoused any other, more controversial policies, which unfortunately one of them did.

But in the case of Chick-fil-A, the company president Dan Cathy specifically supported an anti-gay marriage policy, and deliberately included his company in his recent statements, rather than making a statement in a personal capacity. Firstly:

“…we’re inviting God’s judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at him and say we know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage. And I pray God’s mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude that thinks we have the audacity to redefine what marriage is all about.”

And then:

“We are very much supportive of the family — the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that … We want to do anything we possibly can to strengthen families. We are very much committed to that.”
Without getting into the extent to which corporations really are and are not people, this is just not smart business. Some aspects of the Chick-fil-A corporate culture are very commendable – the fact thay they choose not to open their restaurants on Sundays so that staff have time to spend with their families and attend church if they are religious, for example, is refreshing in this day and age, and harms no one (except people with fried chicken cravings after sunday services).
Announcing that your company does not support marriage equality, on the other hand, while not actively harming anyone (because there is no discrimination at work, the company serves and treats all customers alike), is just plain irrelevant. Chick-fil-A, as a corporate “person”, is not harmed by any attempts to legalise marriage between two people of the same sex. Nor, for that matter, are any private heterosexual individuals, no matter what ludicrous claims they may make.
If a corporation exercises its supposed first amendment right to speak out against a policy that directly impacts its bottom line (such as tax policy or employee healthcare, a la Target or Whole Foods) this is perhaps understandable. But gay marriage? I would be very interested to hear an argument explaining how the legalisation of gay marriage would result in lower profits for Chick-fil-A. And until I hear a convincing one, I will be of the opinion that matters such as these are none of their business, and that they, and their CEO, would do well to keep quiet on the topic.
Why pick an unnecessary fight, alienate potential customers and generate bad headlines? It’s just bad business.

Romney Gets It Right

Samuel HooperLeave a comment

I think that Mitt Romney struck exactly the right tone in this speech, given in the aftermath of the horrifying shootings in Aurora, Colorado. NPR reports:

Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney who was in Bow, New Hampshire for a campaign event addressed the mass shooting in Colorado, during a speech this afternoon.

Romney said he was addressing the nation, not as “political candidate,” but as “a father, a grandfather, a husband, an American.” Now, he said, “is the time to look into our hearts and remember how much we love one another and how much we love and how much we care for our great country.”

The report continues:

He said that as the days go by, we’ll learn of the brilliant futures that were lost due to this “hateful act.” And that “there will be justice.”

“But that’s a matter for another day. Today is a moment to grieve,” he said. It’s a moment to remember that hate is overcome by the outpouring of support that the victims of the shooting were shown today.

Romney echoed the president’s earlier speech saying that tonight we’ll hold “each other closer.”

“We pray that the wounded will recover and that those who are grieving will know the nearness of God,” Romney said.

Amen.

SEMI-PARTISAN SUMMARY

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Semi-Partisan Sam’s inaugural summary of new events and commentary that are worth a read today.

CULTURE

The Obama and Romney campaigns paused their respective election campaigns in response to the tragic cinema shootings in Colorado, which have left at least twelve people dead. This did not stop some people from trying to make political hay out of the tragedy, though they were roundly chastised by Slate Magazine.

The Daily Mash takes a sardonic look at the new Batman movie which just received its London premiere. Mocking pundits from left and right alike, who have attempted to find a relevant political statement in the subtext of the movie, they report that “Director Christopher Nolan’s latest epic has prompted intense speculation from critics searching for socio-political meaning behind the images of a man in a costume hitting people and running away from explosions.”

 

BRITISH POLITICS

Robert Halfon MP writes an opinion piece for ConservativeHome, arguing that the Conservative Party needs to work harder to win the respect and votes of trades union members, where necessary reaching over the heads of their ideological, self-serving union leadership. I couldn’t agree more. The average RMT worker has no more in common with the fat, bloated Bob Crow than I have with Matthew McConnaughey, and it is ludicrous that Crow should claim to speak for his entire membership and not be called out for doing so. A point well worth remembering as leaders of the Public Services Union call a strike in the run-up to the Olympic Games, based on a ballot where turnout was less than 20% of members.

Nick Cohen at The Spectator has an excellent piece exposing the cravenness of the British government in handing the Olympic organisers and their favoured partners so much control not just over the Olympic brand, but over the ability to market goods and to exercise free speech itself. In fact, the Olympic organisers are the beneficiaries of a special, bespoke law (the London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act of 2006) which gives them special and criminally enforceable legal rights that no other private individual, company or organisation enjoys. This article is a must-read.

An expectant couple were shocked to find a ghostly image of Margaret Thatcher’s head in the ultrasound scan picture of their unborn baby, as Guido Fawkes reports. I really have nothing to add to this one.

Tony Blair would be more at home in America than Britain, or at least would receive a warmer welcome, writes Paul Goodman at ConservativeHome.

A worrying new “grassroots” campaign has appeared, on Facebook and elsewhere, calling for the renationalisation of Britain’s rail network. Going by the name “Bring Back British Rail”, they long for a return to the days of swift, courteous, efficient transport service and a customer-oriented ethos that used to exist prior to…oh wait. Well, the government should just own everything, right? It’s simple! ADDENDUM – I refined my views slightly after a discussion with a respected friend on the Bring Back British Rail group’s Facebook wall.

 

AMERICAN POLITICS

Andrew Sullivan gets there first and does a better job of analysing Obama’s “you didn’t build that” speech, which has sparked so much Conservative gloating/fuming. I must admit that when I first heard it, I thought that this was another facepalm moment, akin to Obama’s “clinging to guns and religion” faux-pas, but Sullivan clears things up and demonstrates quite clearly that the “that” Obama is referring to were the roads and bridges and infrastructure which he was discussing immediately before – and which were conveniently left out of the quote. You can still argue that Obama attributes too much success to the collective aspects of American society – the infrastructure, the regulations, and so on – but I think it is pretty ridiculous to argue that the president really believes that entrepreneurs are not responsible for their own success.

Michele Bachmann, the fire-breathing congresswoman from Minnesota, finally stepped over the line with her letter calling into question the character and patriotism of a senior State Department aide who happens to be Muslim. This was too much even for the likes of John Boehner, who was one of several senior Republicans to disassociate himself from Bachmann’s ‘McCarthy-like’ witch hunt.

The General Services Administration (GSA) appear to have failed to learn from the furore that followed their Las Vegas blowout in 2010, or at least decided that blowing taxpayer money on lavish events was a feat to be encouraged and repeated. Which they duly did in November of that year, allegedly spending $268,732 on a venue, drinks and canapés, entertainment and party gifts at a “performance reward ceremony”.

Highlighting an often-overlooked point, Lori Montgomery, writing in The Washington Post, reminds us that Americans actually pay the lowest taxes to the federal government in 30 years. If today’s GOP cared much for the truth, or understood the concept of an objective fact, perhaps they might stop whining about Obama the tax-raising president. But I think we all know that won’t happen.

This controversial piece by Tom Junod caused quite a stir when it was published just over a week ago. Analysing the secret drone strike programme operated by the Obama administration (though its existence is officially denied, apart from a series of fortuitous leaks to let the American people know how successful it is), it should make any right thinking person question the new powers over life and death, due process and standards of accountability that are being claimed by the federal government. It should also make anyone who voted for Obama hoping to put an end to the criminal excesses of the Bush administration feel betrayed and angry about what is still taking place in your name.

Fortunately, the ACLU is now getting involved and suing the Obama administration over these grotesque constitutional overreaches, as Adam Serwer reports at MotherJones.