Thoughts on the 2nd Amendment

I tossed off this comment:
I own guns. I think law abiding people should be allowed to own guns for hunting and such. I read the 2nd amendment as preserving the rights of the individual states to have a standing army which they might use to blunt the power of the federal government. Nice idea at the time. But history has erased any use for this provision.
A friend asked:
Amendments 1, 3-10 apply to individuals, but #2 applies to states?
and another friend provided a link to an interesting article:

http://saf.org/LawReviews/Stearns1.htm

My attempt at a response:

It gets complex. As I recall, there was a general dislike of the idea of a standing Federal army. Plus the English had confiscated individual weapons. Then there was the simple fact that there was, at the time, little real difference between a hunting weapon and a weapon for war. So the way people thought about National defense was in terms of Militias and individually provided weapons.
However, I would also expect that the founders would have not objected if one of the smaller states, as an inducement to Civic Virtue, required all who owned guns to belong to the local militia. You have to remember that there are no Libertarians at that time; the idea that the government should provide inducements to promote Civic Virtue was common.
I also expect that the founders would have had no problem denying weapons to people outside of those who could vote. The article referenced does not go into this but it was the Knights and Yeomen who were expected to have weapons for their own defense and for the collective defense. Not the peasantry. And generally not the town folk. Times had changed by the 1770s but society was not at all egalitarian.

We no longer have the need for every yeoman to muster up with their own kit ready to leap to the common defense. We now have and expect to have a professional army. The power of the armed forces is checked by training and norms of behavior we instill in all members plus a politically engaged populace who would not support the army taking over.
The founders did not think this enough. Over our 200+ years it has proved enough for us.
Other countries have had other experiences.
As things stand now, no one fields an army with deer rifles. And the weapons one might have for personal defense are not what you would use to over-through the government.
Times have changed, our laws should also.

Economics and Money Supply

Had an interesting conversation with a co-worker on economics. The interesting point, to me anyway, was this person's preference for how money Ought To Be vs how economist generally think about it. They were just not comfortable with the idea that the Money supply could just grow; money had to be some sort of real resource which could not grow just by using.

No gold bug this person. Seemed to understand the general point of leverage and the growth of the money supply as described by most economists. Just did not believe it.

Now, I've met my share of people convinced that specie money was the only 'real' money. But none of them managed to explain why they wanted this to be so in the face of real evidence this is not how things work now.

Since they did not buy the model that money could grow and shrink, they did not really buy the general economic models. In many ways, this is similar to how I feel about quantum mechanics. My understanding of both economics and quantum mechanics is not deep. I have a general appreciation for the main points and think I understand the basic arguments. I find quantum mechanics weird and are sure some other, better model must be out there. 'cause the model on hand is just ugly.

What do I take away from this conversation? Our society is doing a bad job of teaching economics so that smart people can understand how our society works. Since they don't understand it, they are not willing to do the correct things to keep things working. For example, cutting the debt seems like a good idea and doing it now seems like it might help.

Good Investment

Imagine you owned a business. It produces steady earnings but the market is such that projected growth for the next 5 to 10 years is low - 2%. There are capital improvements you could make which would increase productivity and increase earnings to 5%. Fortunately, your banker is offering low interest loans for such improvements - interest rate is below inflation and effectively zero. You can pay the loan out of the increased earnings and, in a few years, reap the profits. You take the loan, make the investment, and get written up in the Wall Street Journal.

This is essentially the situation the Federal Government is in. Job growth is slow and now looks to stay low for 5 to 10 years. GDP growth is well below historical averages and likely to stay that way. Ah, but interest rates are zero. If you borrow money and use it to make infrastructure improvements which make the overall economy more efficient more jobs are created. Those people have money to spend which creates demand for goods and services and so other people have jobs. GDP would grow at a normal rate and taxes would go up so you can pay off the loan.

You should take out the loan.

Of course, you should also put in place a plan to pay off the debt incurred by waging two wars without paying for them. Putting our tax rates back to where they were in the prosperous 90s will do most of that. We will need some extra income to cover the stimulus spending. Lucky for us, we also need to get our oil imports down and reduce the amount of fossil fuel we use; a carbon tax or cap and trade system will help with that and generate some income.

Give it some real thought and we can improve our economy and thus the lives of all Americans. Do nothing and we all suffer.

"Illegal Immigrants make bad choices" and other incomplete arguments

Personal Responsibility is a large part of the basic Conservative philosophy. Conservative commentators often press taking responsibility for your own choices. While they do mean it, it does not hurt that the basic idea is an easy sell. Who would be against it?

However, most of the conservative commentators apply the idea only half way. For example, when writing about illegal immigrants there is much about making the immigrant suffer the consequence of their choice; as if they were the only ones making a choice. Left out of the discussion is the choices made by the employers. Presumably, roving bands of illegals force fast food restaurant owners to hire them at low wages.

Not finishing the argument lets the conservatives protect one of their favored groups but distorts the solutions they propose. (something they are often willing to accuse liberals of doing)

Shaking Hands

Fortune popped this out today:

You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.
  -- Indira Gandhi

To which I'd add:

Adults can shake hands with people they don't like.

Infrastructure

The Federal Gas tax has not gone up since 1993. Just prior to Newt Gingrich's 'Republican Revolution'. Republican control of the House has ensured our Nation has not had the money needed to pay for the up-keep on our infrastructure. No one knows, just now, if this money could have prevented the collapse of the I35W bridge in Minneapolis but it would be foolish to suppose it could not have helped.

Jonathan Chait ducks the real issue

In a recent column (A Liberal Hawk Strikes Back) Jonathan Chait would like us all to think that the Bush and his team's incompetence is the only reason the invasion of Iraq as sunk into the quagmire we find ourselves in. By keeping the focus on the many questionable decisions made in the course of this invasion, Chait can avoid the more difficult (for him) issue: was the neo-con idea of transforming the Middle East by force an idea which set US Foreign Policy on a new and useful course or a sophomoric fantasy devised by a close knit group who exchanged endless white papers and memos congratulating each other on their cleverness?

I find compelling the Enlightenment idea that societies progress at different rates and that, as they progress, new forms of government become possible. Democracy can not survive until conditions are right. Thus, I find his comparison of Iraq with Bosnia/Serbia/Croatia in the 1990s dubious. That region had the precursors to democracy in the past. The collapse into civil war was recent and reversible. The West intervened in fairly quick order and so the society had not lost what was needed to support Democracy.

Iraq had none of these advantages. The decade of sanctions imposed after Saddam's invasion of Kuwait had effectively destroyed such minimal progress Iraq had made toward real democracy in spite of Saddam and his dictatorial predecessor. Iraq was not fertile ground for the neo-con's plan and anyone paying attention could have discovered this.

Aside: It is sad that the Neo-Con fantasy required democracy in Iraq. Otherwise the might have usefully spent time and effort advancing democracy in the Middle Eastern states which have made the most progress: Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon.

It is long past time for Jonathan Chait and his fellow neo-cons to grow up and realize they have both destroyed Iraq and very nearly destroyed the War on Terrorism.