zoogs

Gah. Unfortunately, the reality is Trump has power. A great deal of it. This is how he will use it. He should have never been allowed to come near it, much less be elected, much less remain unimpeached in office.

ML is not going to save us. It is good optics. It's also belated, insufficient, and...look, I'm glad Facebook is at some point going to respond to public pressure and actually try. I'm just saying, this is not what they're best at. People were always susceptible to misinformation, for example. It's accelerated now. I don't know if anyone can actually "solve" it, but this is all an argument for stronger public institutions, especially education.

Uh, no. They're tech companies. They're good at tinkering with things. They're really good at selling ads (Facebook, anyway). They were able to connect millions of people together on a platform because they can build the software systems necessary. They have no preparation or even consciousness about the social fallout that has ensued. Lots of good things happen as a result of social media, but there are also ill effects. It can't be plainer, for example, that Facebook is still mostly interested in arguing that it didn't have that much responsibility in the first place. They control their platforms. This isn't the same thing as being equipped to deal with a non-technical problem they inadvertently facilitated.

In fact, it has, but not in the right way: https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/so-you-think-you-know-the-second-amendment That's the thing about amendments: they are a big deal. A significant reinterpretation of the Constitution is a big deal. It has to happen slowly, in the face of a lot of resistance. Carving out parts of the Bill of Rights to say these rights are now excluded is an extraordinary measure. There's no reason that guns should be this way. We should be able to just decide, you know what? This AR-15 business, it's crazy. Maybe let's just not allow this particular type of product, and nobody's civil liberties are being restricted. Some people will disagree and think it's stupid, but then, some people think the ban on Kinder eggs (a candy product from Europe which contains a toy inside) is stupid.

OK, this is going to spin off into another discussion. I mean in general, including (and especially) when it comes to states. The global history of choosing people to silence is a good chunk of unsupportable efforts. As for Twitter and Facebook, they're not equipped to handle this problem and shouldn't really be trusted to. Who doesn't fully support solving the massive misinformation problem? There's a difference between that and believing the companies will take care of it. This is an "us" problem, our susceptibility. And it requires an "us" solution.

I don't mean "extremist"

@BigRedBuster, yeah, I follow a lot of the Twitter/FB stuff and don't really know what to feel about it. It's not really a constitutional issue there, since these are private services and users are all subject to the TOS. On the other hand, they're so big that they perform effectively a public utility. And as much as it seems to me like a good outcome that these Nazi accounts are being shut down, they're not the only ones. I have relatively little faith in the ability of these large companies to effectively arbitrate, and there are accounts on the other side that get shut down as well, sometimes for snapping back at Nazis. Also, the companies have no particular public conscience. They only need do enough to blunt some of the heat they're getting. In general, I agree with the (libertarian?) view that these measures, on balance, are as likely to be deployed by authorities against the left as they are against the right.

I know, I know -- I'm not here to defend his manner of posting. I just want to keep making my point that the NRA-warped interpretation of the 2nd amendment, codified by the Supreme Court in 2008, is a fundamental impediment that makes it all too easy to stop anything from moving forward.

The question Muck is asking is if the AR-15 can be carved out of the 2nd amendment, why can't the internet be carved out of the first amendment? Speak freely, but not online, because it's dangerous. Some will say it's not, that online speech is no different really from other forms of speech -- just as some will say the AR-15 is much like any other rifle. This is not unreasonable, and it's why I just want the 2nd amendment gone, or at least restored. If all the 2nd amendment provided for was militia participation, this wouldn't be an issue. If it literally means "the rights of people to own guns", then banning something like the AR-15 is a restriction on liberty. Personally, I think we should be able to freely choose how to regulate (or not) different kinds of weapons, and each state or city should be able to experiment with their own regulations. It's ridiculous that we have interpreted the 2A in such a way that regulating the AR-15 becomes tantamount to adding more "shouting 'fire' in a crowded theater" exceptions to liberty.

I’d be happy to see alternative systems of electing presidents, by the way. Maybe we get rid of the electoral college. Maybe we turn to a parliamentary legislature. These are interesting, valuable conversation in their own right, but they are also not happening. Not only is the current system imperfect, no political system ever will be. There are always trade offs. We can only use the levers we’ve got, and maybe try to empower people who are likely to push against things like gerrymandering and selective disenfranchisement to improve the structure of our democracy long term. At the least we wouldn’t have people who are trying to crush democracy wholesale, as we do now — from voting rights to faith in institutions. We are paying a truly staggering cost right now and it’s unclear how we will emerge from this unscathed. In both the short and long term it is terrifying, and moreover, this was the obvious outcome of a Trump presidency.

That’s not your only option — it’s just the one that fits the “you can be anti Trump and *turn out*, and also just want Democrats to move in a certain direction on this area of policy” stance. It’s fine if the stance is actually stand on the sidelines and opt out until some party achieves idealism, or to shake things up until Some Third Party gets federal funding, but then say so. If that is the overriding priority, then the simple fact is that policy is not. Tens of thousands of people around the country were dissatisfied and wanted to send Democrats a message. They stayed home, voted third party, and argued to those around them that this was a good thing. This curious means of attempting to not elect Donald F*cking Trump as President did not succeed, to put it mildly, and in any honest examination that was not the goal.

What? No, I do not find it a wink, wink coincidence. These stories are coming out now because they can, and could not before. There are a lot of stories and a lot more will come out on people of various stripes, liberal or conservative. It’s always someone’s political news cycle. We cannot engage in the same reflexive casting of aspersions on those who come out that has always been the impediment to speaking up in the first place. Come on.

Only in the worst of all possible administrations do we respond to a nation-shaking tragedy like this by making an organized public push for arming schoolteachers. It speaks to the deep-seated Republican desire for a militarist state; armed enforcement everywhere to keep us “safe”. This terrifying vision is many things. “Free” is not one of them.

Yes, you can. Turning out for elections means voting, by the way. And not for Jill Stein.

"But George Soros" literally.

^That article is great reading, btw. This is where my conviction about doing away with the 2A comes from. Those amendments in the BoR should be fiercely defended and equal protection via the 14th amendment should apply. Where state or local laws make incursions on these protections, the Supreme Court should step in. The problem is the inclusion -- at least by our relatively modern interpretation -- of "owning guns" among those things that should be exalted. -- @Redux, it's plain that you have a broad spectrum aversion to political debate. I wonder where you've confused this stance as being the one that cares "more" about the major issues. If you care, participate. If you not only don't care but consider the debate pointless, then at least pair that up with an honest "I don't care about any political issue" posture.

@Redux -- You cannot "unite" in the "harmony" of taking no side on an issue where sides and stances matter. http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/02/clarence-thomas-angry-that-scotus-doesnt-love-guns.html This is a not crazy thing for Justice Thomas to say. And yes, there are the obvious rejoinders -- look at all the times in our imperfect history where other constitutionally protected rights, be they due process or speech or whatever, were treated carelessly by courts low and high. But that's the point: those weren't high points. If the Constitution said that we defend the right for everyone to own and operate motor vehicles, then every restriction is a constitutional matter. You would expect heavy resistance to laws saying certain classes of vehicles should be banned from sale or from the roads. All of this would fall under the banner of protecting our liberties. And that's the way it is with guns. You can't say "well, obviously, ban these types of guns" without also raising the question of what kinds of other rights (e.g. speech) can be deemed unprotected. You can't say "obviously don't sell guns to these types of people" without creating a legal framework where we identify certain numbers of citizens to be unworthy of access to their basic rights, and then how far does that go? Can we say some other group of people are unfit to have their right to due process protected? (We do already, don't we?) The crux of the insanity is that we've put owning guns right up there with every other basic right. At least, successive Republican presidencies and decades of groundwork laid by the NRA have achieved a world where ten years ago the highest court in the land decided to lay down this particular interpretation of the 2A. And so any efforts at gun control will meet with resistance...from gun lovers and the gun lobby, yes, but they are also armed with some good arguments. And as long as we enshrine gun ownership as this kind of fundamental liberty, it will continue to enjoy the sort of legal shielding and inertia as anything designated as such by our Constitution is precisely meant to.

Those who make a virtue out of tuning out or not taking a stand should be under no illusion that they're anything other than part of the reason why no action gets taken. Our politics, and our democracy, is participatory.

It’s not Trump. It’s not a new thing, though he does align with it. Even having a president who does not is not enough, as we have seen. Republicans must lose control of Congress.

It’s ludicrous to suggest that the party that has for years tried to expand access to health care in the face of continued, determined resistance to even the most modest and conservative of measures has “done nothing” about mental health. Some real whataboutism there to justify treating both the gun control and anti-gun control people as dumb about the issue. Of course, neither side is dumb — they just have very different priorities. Failing to realize where the blame lies is exactly why nothing gets done. The people who stop this from happening are the problem. Our indifference keeps them in office, blind to the possibility that having people who refuse to support gun control measures could be the reason for gun control measures always being voted down.

Bear in mind, "total repeal" != "total ban", or even "any ban"

^The 2A stuff is just me, btw. AFAIK it's not a major thing, but I think it could be. The polling tells me not a lot of people consider guns to be particularly precious -- even gun owners, even conservatives. On the other hand, people are right to be serious on "rights" and there are quite legitimate concerns with restricting their protection. I don't know that this argument gets made much, but to me it seems that taking the 2nd amendment head-on itself, and examining why and whether guns should be the same right as all the others (it's crazy that we have this), is something that can allow for more of a path forward. Conservatives on the whole align with the NRA under the "defense of civil liberties" rubric more than their own particular love of guns and the gun industry. At least I hope.

You're making some pretty strange statements, BRB. The obvious reason why "nothing gets done" on gun control is that anti-gun control people are extremely resistant to it, as well as extremely powerful (on top of that, I'd add that they fashion themselves victims of a sprawling anti-gun lobby). Only a very small part of the debate, currently, is actually "Repeal 2A". To say that my particular line there is why nothing gets done is odd. The larger implication, that people who want gun control have unreasonable demands, is also odd. There's a fairly broad popular consensus on a lot of points that don't see the political light of day. The "other side", the ones who oppose them, are not being shut down from participating and there is no amount of accommodation that will bring them into the debate. They are completely, utterly recalcitrant. So many people agree that X, Y, and Z should be done about guns. Why doesn't that happen? It's not those people that are the unreasonable ones. -- As for "Repeal 2A", I'll make my case here for why I feel this way and why I don't think it should be interpreted as "gun control, only more extreme." The Bill of Rights matters -- when Republicans a few years ago talked about due process and the dangers of restricting a constitutionally protected fundamental right from a certain class of citizens, Democrats staged a sit-in but I agreed that this was dangerous. If one of these sacrosanct rights to which all are entitled is withheld under some rubric, then all of them are under threat. So the question to me is always why gun possession is one of those rights. Owning a car is not, and yet we own cars. Owning...literally anything else is not, and this does not stop people from possessing watches, or knives, or boats, or tables and chairs. That we have interpreted the 2A such that it enshrines firearm possession in the same sacred circle of basic liberties as freedom of speech and freedom to assemble is a major structural impediment to getting anything done. I don't believe it was ever the intent of the 2A and I don't believe a dramatic reversal of the (relatively recent!) modern SCOTUS interpretation of 2A is forthcoming. Therefore, I think we should just repeal the 2nd amendment. I'd prefer this vastly to creating some convoluted mechanism by which we still define guns as a right but find ever-expanding ways to say some citizens no longer deserve rights. This is about guns, and we can solve the gun problem without introducing a new "but who gets rights, really?" problem.

Right, the people who want gun control are the reason gun control doesn't get done. My bad. It's my fault -- not the guns, not the people who stop gun control from getting done. If only people who wanted a lot more gun control would stop wanting gun control, then the people who don't want any more gun control would finally be freed from their tethers and allowed to proceed on getting gun control done. I admit, this grave strategic error had not occurred to me.

What's the implication there, anyway? That if only the government had pinpoint, continuous monitoring of everybody's mental health state they could know which citizens to strip of their otherwise protected rights and when? The problem is guns. Their quantity, their availability. It's a problem that can be taken head-on and there really need be no equivocation, no "but also remember to do this". Mental health is not some topic that exists only in the context of gun violence. This particular invocation is always an attempt to blunt efforts targeted at guns themselves -- fairly successfully, too. We know how that story goes, and we know what the next chapter is going to look like.