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Category: Vintage post

Posts from previous blog generations

The Gun Lobby Counts Off

From The Libertarian Enterprise, November 1995

In a recent issue (October 10, 1995) of CrimeStrike News (the NRA/ILA newsletter from their “war-on-crime” department) there appears an article attacking the “anti-incarceration lobby”. This article contains the seed of some serious problems for the NRA in terms of self-defense — at least the defense of their stated position. 

The article, entitled “Violent Offenders Outnumber Drug Offenders In U.S. Prisons”, cites statistics provided by Dr. Allen Beck of the Bureau of Justice Statistics that show that the number of inmates incarcerated for violent offenses is much larger than the number of those incarcerated for drug offenses. Apparently the NRA feels that the “anti-incarceration lobby” has been shading the truth by asserting that drug incarcerations outnumber violent crime incarcerations. The BJS figures quoted are as follows: the number of inmates locked up for violent offenses is up from 173,300 in 1980 to 394,500 in 1993; the number of inmates in state prisons for drug convictions rose from 19,000 to 186,000 between 1980 and 1993. 

Tanya Metaksa, the NRA/ILA’s chief lobbyist, says, in the NRA’s article, “The anti-incarceration lobby has been twisting the truth for years. The fact is, the majority of criminals in prisons are violent offenders, not harmless petty thieves. And even if it were true that many people who ‘don’t belong in prison’ are in prison, that would be an argument against the law that sent them to prison wrongly, not the prison itself. …” 

I agree with Mrs. Metaksa 100%. And I certainly don’t speak for the “anti-incarceration lobby” — heck, I don’t even know who they are. But I will take exception to the NRA’s unstated implication that, because of the numbers quoted, the premise of the war-on-crime system model for incarceration as espoused by the NRA (and others) is valid. From the BJS data that the NRA themselves quote, it would appear to me that there is something fundamentally wrong (and getting “wronger”) with a system of justice that appears to find it easier to fill the prisons with perpetrators of victimless crimes than it does to punish those who are the true predators. 

Let me offer a couple of observations. First, the numbers quoted appear to be only for state prisons — but a number of drug crimes are ‘federalized’. Do the BJS numbers reflect incarcerations in federal prisons as well? And, if not, how would inclusion of those numbers affect the NRA’s assertions? 

Number two, and more importantly, take another look at the numbers provided. In 1980, violent crime incarcerations outnumbered drug incarcerations by just over 9:1. By 1993, that ratio had dropped to just over 2:1. So, the pace of incarceration in fact HAS increased far more rapidly for drug offenders than for violent criminals. Expressed another way, incarceration for violent crime increased 228% between 1980 and 1993. Incarceration for drug crime increased 979% during the same period. 

We all seem to agree that we are not collectively satisfied with the number of incarcerations for violent crimes, nor with the degree of punishment for those who are successfully imprisoned. The trends would seem to suggest that the war on drugs has been effective, if in no other way, in escalating the number of incarcerations for drug crimes. 

Whether or not this has had a negative effect on the number of incarcerations for violent crimes is problematical. Perhaps, though, it is logical to assert that, for the past decade and a half, if the enforcement emphasis has been shifted toward victimless crimes, and the resources available for enforcement have remained relatively constant, then we can conclude that there has in fact been a reduction in enforcement of laws against violent crime. Maybe a simple solution would be to concentrate on violent crime and de-emphasize (dare I say de-criminalize?) victimless crime? 

Now before I’m attacked for being “soft on crime”, let me offer a couple of qualifications. I oppose the coercive sale of drugs to kids and the drug dealers’ practice of conning kids into working as ‘mules’ to reduce their own risk — not to mention a whole raft of other behaviors practiced by drug dealers. (Of course, decriminalization of drugs makes those problems — and the street corner dealers themselves — go away.) 

Also, let me state that I am wholeheartedly in favor of punishing criminals for their offenses against individuals. I do however prefer a punishment system that extracts restitution over one that provides hotels, health spas, and taxpayer-funded advanced educations to the convicted. 

So let me caution the NRA and all the rest of the tough-on-crime groups: it is easy to persecute drug users, gun owners, cigarette smokers, separatists, religious sects, tax resisters, and other perpetrators of crimes against no one. It is a lot harder to devise a system that reduces the incentives to commit crimes, focuses on crimes that have victims, and punishes offenses through restitution. It’s also easy to look at the numbers, and miss seeing the forest for counting the trees.

So Long, Mel

From The Libertarian Enterprise, November 1995

Ex-Congressman Mel Reynolds of Illinois recently reported to jail to begin serving a five year term for ‘sex crimes’. It seems ironic that Reynolds should ultimately have been convicted for the one act for which libertarians might not have condemned him, and not for his true crimes against liberty that go largely unremarked. 

Reynolds allegedly had sexual relations with a sixteen-year-old campaign volunteer. This affair was, apparently, consensual; in fact, his accuser attempted to withdraw her charges and recant her testimony after charges had been filed. At the least, there seems to be reasonable doubt that the crime for which Reynolds will serve time actually occurred, absent a true victim. 

So Reynolds was unfairly incarcerated, right? 

Well, no — not really. Considering his record in Congress, I think we should accept the verdict on the grounds that he clearly did do to Lady Liberty what he was accused of doing to the young girl. And in a forceful, coercive, repeated fashion at that. 

Reynolds has long been an outspoken advocate of restricting the rights of his constituents and of American citizens everywhere. 

He has spoken out and voted on the floor of the House in favor of government control over civil liberties. 

He has consistently violated his oath of office by supporting legislation that is inconsistent with, and harmful to, the Constitution of the United States of America. 

He has appeared with numerous “talking heads” as an advocate for the most egregious takings of individual freedoms that the human mind can imagine. 

Besides, if Reynolds did force himself on a young girl, or otherwise coerce her into having sex with him, that’s a crime as well. The same attitude that led him to believe that he could diddle the Constitution and the American people might have easily translated itself into his private life. That seems reasonable, and there’s some historical precedent for such an association. Just ask practically anybody from Massachusetts. 

It’s true that there’s some doubt about the validity of charges against Reynolds, just as there were against “B-Movie Bob” Packwood. But let’s face it. These guys clearly have developed a bad case of the ‘do as I say do, not as I do do’ syndrome. 

In a way, politicians like Reynolds and Packwood are a peculiar form of separatist, to use a phrase that government loves to apply to people who don’t think as it wishes them to. Well, turnabout’s fair play. 

Extremist separatist politicians subscribe to the belief that they know what’s best for all of us; that we aren’t capable or willing to make our own decisions; that they are above the laws that they make for us, by virtue of their superior standing and intellect; and that anyone who challenges their rule must be brutally suppressed, for the common good. 

Only we, the people, can save ourselves from these extremists. We must take steps to remove from office those politicians who would separate us from our liberties. 

Incarcerating Mel Reynolds is “a good first step.” 

“If it saves just one young girl’s life, it’s worth it.” 

“After all, we’re doing it for the children.” 

So, in the final analysis, Mel Reynolds is going to jail for screwing around with the wrong lady. 

That’s good enough for me. 

One down, a few score to go.

The Infamous 349

From The Libertarian Enterprise, November 1995

On October 1, 1995, in my state of residence, 349 new laws went into effect, having been passed in the previous legislative session. 

Three hundred and forty nine. And our legislature isn’t even in session year-round. Think what they could do with a little more time. 

If we were just starting out in this statehood thing, I might understand. After all, a brand new state would require lots of shiny new laws to govern the conduct of its citizens, now wouldn’t it? 

But heck, we’re one of the 13 original comedies — er, colonies. If we had passed, on average, 349 laws per year since independence — come to think of it, we probably have — we’d have well over 75,000 laws on the books by now, assuming none of them were repealed. (A safe assumption if ever there was one.) 

It’s hard to believe with all those laws already on the books that we managed to overlook for so long 349 areas of our lives that so desperately needed governmental intervention and regulation. 

One of our new laws requires bicyclists to wear helmets. One requires students to be fully vaccinated or they won’t be allowed in school. One law mandates a one year suspension for any student bringing a gun to school. 

Now, I certainly don’t have a problem with bicyclists choosing to wear helmets. In my youth, I administered first aid to a motorcyclist who had buried his bike into the front end of a car while he himself — helmetless, as was the custom in those days — continued on forward to an inevitable rendezvous between his skull and a concrete curb. (The last I heard, he had not only survived, but had fully recovered.) Memories like that would certainly make me an advocate for mandatory helmet laws, if anything would, wouldn’t they? 

Well, actually, no. 

When I was in college, I rode a motorcycle helmetless, and I’ve never worn a bicycle helmet in my life. Yet here I am, alive, well, and presumably possessed of a fully functional brain, traumatized only by years of public education. 

“Well, you were lucky”, say my many insufferable critics. 

Yes, that’s precisely the point! I’ve dumped a motorcycle on- and off-road, and had one or two fairly nasty bicycle accidents, but I was lucky. Life is full of risks, some manageable, some not. How one chooses to live, surrounded by those risks and countless others, is a decision that must ultimately be left up to the individual in that circumstance, at that time. 

Nor do I have a problem with parents choosing to have their children vaccinated. Goodness knows, children couldn’t survive before vaccines were developed, and vaccination has eradicated childhood illness, right? Oops, I guess that’s not quite true. It seems that there is substantial evidence that mass immunization has not proved effective in eradicating childhood diseases, that there are significant downside risks (both short term and long term) to vaccination which are minimized — even covered up — by health professionals, and that what we believe we know about vaccination doesn’t square with all of the facts. 

Now some of us have run into “bad science” in other areas, from health professionals playing politics with grant monies. Lately, for example, some doctors have been attempting to establish firearms as a public health hazard. [For a resource that is extremely effective at debunking this particular brand of weird science, I recommend Doctors for Integrity in Policy Research, Inc.; Edgar A. Suter MD, National Chair; 5201 Norris Canyon Road – Suite 140; San Ramon, CA 94583; 510-277-1283 fax; EdgarSuter@aol.com e-mail] 

We have seen flawed studies — studies that were either grossly ignorant or willfully false — paraded in front of the American public, fronted by the implied assertion that if a doctor says it, well then it must be true. After all, they have that ‘Hypocritical Oath’ thing, don’t they? Well, the next time a doctor says that guns are a public health hazard, ask him or her whether guns or “medical malfeasance” caused more accidental deaths last year. (Caution: don’t ask this question during an examination!) 

And, truth be known, I understand why the state would feel that it needed to pass a law mandating a one year suspension for a student bringing a gun to school. Hey, we’ve got to prove to these kids that we’re tough on such “crimes”. 

If my son decided that he wanted to take his Ruger Redhawk to school, I guess I’d have a few questions myself. If I thought for a minute that his school was so unsafe that he felt he needed to carry a firearm for protection, he’d have already spent his last day at that school, for sure. (Since I know that he has the good sense not to take it for some macho ‘show-n-tell’, and since I trust him as a member in good standing of the Libertarian Party not to violate the Non-Aggression Principle, there could be no other reason.) 

The people who run the schools, who head the law enforcement agencies, who meet to form these innumerable new laws, believe that if you are in possession of a firearm, you are irrevocably bound to commit a criminal act. This assumption forms the basis for laws against concealed carry, open carry, possession of a firearm in certain places, et. al. The powers that be are convinced that you and I are so stupid, so brutish, that the only reason we might possess a firearm is to commit a crime or have an accident. 

You’d think we’d be able to decide for ourselves whether or not we wanted to wear a bicycle helmet, vaccinate against childhood diseases, or carry a firearm. But government, in its infinite wisdom, feels that we are so intellectually impaired, so bereft of common sense, so blindly ignorant of what is good for us or bad for us, that we must be subjected to countless new laws to dictate our every behavior. 

I can’t help but wonder what portion of the 2,000 law enforcement officers ‘granted’ to my state by the “It’s a Crime, Bill” will have to be assigned to enforcement of the bicycle helmet, vaccination, and firearms in schools laws? 

And we’ve still got 346 new laws to cover before the legislature begins anew in January.

There, but for the Grace of …

From The Libertarian Enterprise, October 1995

In the past week, I’ve had abundant opportunity to do one of the things I enjoy the most — sit back and watch as life affects other people in ways I’d just as soon experience vicariously as I would first-hand. 

First, we have Calvin Ripken (clearly his parents knew something when they named him!) Last week, he broke the iron-man record in baseball with all-too-predictable results. The media “experts”, over-inflated with the noxious gas of their own self-importance, swiftly divided into two camps. One faction wants to canonize Ripken as EveryMan, the Ultimate Striver, Sisyphus re-written with a happy ending. The other, of course, wants to drag him down, to belittle him, to treat him as if he had personally injected the deadly seed of ALS into the veins of the sleeping Gehrig, cackling maniacally in his enjoyment. And speaking of cackling, The Bill Who Would be King, in his never-ending quest to attach himself to anything that might wring votes from the rubes, showed up to watch Ripken break Gehrig’s record. Clinton looked so out of place and uncomfortable; it seemed clear that he could not relate to the feat, to the dedication, or even to the crowd. Meanwhile, Ripken, more EveryBoy than EveryMan, just wants what he’s always wanted — to run in the sun, and to play baseball. Seems simple enough in principle. Maybe we ought to just let him.

In the other corner, we find Robert Packwood (this just seems the week for suggestively-named public figures, doesn’t it?) In spite of being a well-positioned, knowledgeable, influential member of the Senate, “B-Movie Bob” just couldn’t keep it under control. (The tendency to lapse into a sniggering “Beavis and Butthead” routine at this point is almost too much to bear.) I’m not sure at the moment whether this says more about politics, the state of things between the sexes, or just plain human nature, but one thing’s for certain. As a person greatly in need of learning to live within himself and keep his urges (including the urge to write about it!) under control, I suspect Mr. Packwood could profit mightily from lessons from Mr. Ripken. On the other hand, maybe his punishment ought to fit his crime — let his accusers extract a suitable compensation. Naaah, the Eighth Amendment probably gets in the way here. I’m not at all sure that Packwood is being hounded by his colleagues because he did what he did — it may be more because he failed so often that they hold him in contempt. 

To round out our set of profiles in contrast, I submit Mr. Randall Weaver, our third “personality of the week”. Mr. Weaver — one is tempted to suspect that he is a David Koresh who lived — was paraded and displayed last week before the Senate Committee on The Incident at Ruby Ridge, the Honorable Arlen Spector presiding. Portrayed by the government as a religious zealot, gun-nut, loner, ex-baby-killer Green Beret, white-supremacist, anti-government, shotgun-sawing xenophobe, Mr. Weaver gave the overwhelming impression of being a whole lot closer to Mr. Ripken than to Mr. Packwood on the scale of men with whom you’d enjoy sharing a beer, a venison steak, and a fine cigar. It seems clear enough that in the strange case of the Weaver assassinations, Mr. Spector might be a whole lot more successful at making a “magic bullet theory” stick than he was in his past incarnation. It also seems clear that we can tell without looking too hard or too long just who the bad guys are in this scenario. A jury and judge in Idaho; most everyone who has been following the story since the beginning; heck, apparently even some part of the government itself, if monetary compensation is any measure of conscience; everybody seems to pretty much get the picture. Everybody except Democratic congressional “leaders”, “Jackboot Janet” Reno, and “Crime Bill” Clinton, that is. 

Now, let’s be clear on a few things. Cal Ripken didn’t save baseball by his acts. He came much closer to pointing out, by his example, everything that’s wrong with the rest of the sport, and with much of society at large. Bob Packwood’s imbroglio doesn’t really mean much of anything at all, in the comic [sic] scheme of things. Everything his execrable conduct represented had already been correctly assumed of most politicians by most of the American people anyway. (What is it about holding national office that seems guaranteed to de-humanize the officeholder — and the electorate, by proxy?) And Randy Weaver clearly is not now, and never was, a threat to the security of the nation — his tormentors, however, clearly are, and will remain so. 

So there they are in a nutshell — three men who broke through the scum protecting the surface of the consciousness of the network news moguls last week. So what are we to make of these three men? What lessons are we to learn? Well, in a perfect libertarian world, I guess, the bottom line is this: we’d leave two of them alone to live their lives, and the third of them would leave us and others alone. It’s pretty much that simple, isn’t it?

A Daring Move

Admin Note: I have (perhaps inadvisedly) imported my posts from 2010-2017 from my old blog, “The Infinite Smallness”, itself born from “Sign of the Times”. The older posts (all exclusively in the category “Vintage post”) are from a slightly different viewpoint, so the 2017-2018 break is more than just physical. Some of the posts are mundane, but some are probably worth a look. I would caution you only that posts prior to 2018 require that you brave a significant time warp. Again.