A Second Amendment Proposal

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Saturday June 25, 2022 · 1:58 PM PDT

2022/06/25 · 13:58

The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is short and simple: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

That’s it; that’s the language on which Americans have been pretty much given the right to arm themselves with very little limitation. However, the Supreme Court’s decisions regarding this Amendment seem to have ignored its conditional introduction: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State….”

Essentially, we’ve given the right to the people to keep and bear arms without infringement, but we and the courts have neglected giving them the ability to use those arms for their constitutionally specified purpose.

Now, I’m not a fan of guns and not much of a fan of militias either. Nevertheless, if we’re going to strictly adhere to the Constitution when it comes to the Second Amendment, then we better get started on paying attention to its militia requirements, which we’ve neglected for the past 225 years.

Although a state doesn’t have to establish a militia, those that want to do so apparently have a sanctioned Second Amendment right. And we all know how sacred that right is.

In other words, if the Constitution won’t let us control the several hundred million guns floating around this country, then maybe the Founders’ idea of militias to protect the people in each state from being overrun by federal authorities deserves some careful consideration. After all, the federal government has a whole f***ing army with tanks and nuclear weapons while the states have just the National Guard, which the president can nationalize at the drop of a helmet.

Let’s stop wasting time and start establishing the well-regulated militias that the people have been armed to populate without infringement.

Anyway, here’s my proposal to do just that. It is a bit legalistic, I’ll admit, but apparently so is gun control; I just wanted to cover all the bases to make sure gun owners don’t have to give up their guns while performing the patriotic duties for which they claim they need them.

Any state so choosing shall establish, operate, and fund a Militia for the purposes of its defense against all threats, foreign and domestic.
All firearms owners, regardless of age, shall be required to belong to and participate in such a state militia. Registration in said militia is required in order to possess, purchase, or otherwise obtain any firearm(s). Militias shall issue registration certificates to all firearms owners in their membership.
A “firearms owner” shall be defined as an individual or organization in possession of a firearm(s) whether such firearm(s) has (have) been purchased, rented, loaned, or otherwise obtained.
Possession of a firearm shall include, but not be limited to, carrying firearms on one’s person or storing firearms in one’s home, storage facility, vehicle, or other location under the control of the firearms owner.
All adults residing in or occupying any household or using a vehicle where firearms are stored, kept, or otherwise available shall be considered “firearms owners” and shall be required to participate in state militia activities as members.
Persons under the age of 18 years shall be prohibited from owning firearms or handling or using firearms except under the supervision of a parent or guardian who is a certified state militia member.
Militias shall meet one weekend per month for eleven months of the year and for two weeks in the twelfth month to be trained and to maintain such training so as to be ready to defend their state with the firearms they choose to own.
Militias shall provide all ammunition to be used by firearms owners in the course of their training and readiness maintenance.
Militias shall provide all necessary meals and accommodations for all training set forth herein.
An individual may not purchase or possess a firearm without having attended at least one weekend state militia training session so as ensure that he/she will have been properly trained to participate in state militia operations.
All firearms and accessories owned must be brought to each training session for inspection as to readiness for use in state militia operations.
Individual firearms owners who fail to attend the training sessions specified above shall be required to surrender all firearms that they own or that are otherwise in their possession or control until such time as they have attended two consecutive state militia training sessions.
Possession of firearm(s) in violation of the requirements herein shall constitute a felony punishable by suspension of state militia membership, participation, and firearms privileges for one year and, for each firearm so possessed, a fine of $1,000 and/or imprisonment for six months
Individuals who choose not to own firearms shall, with the exception of Article #13 above, be excused from the state militia requirements set forth herein. Such individuals shall be required to register with their state militia as non-firearms owners and shall be provided with an identity certificate attesting to their status. Non-firearms owners shall be required to carry and produce said certificate when requested to do so by law enforcement. Failure to produce said certificate when properly requested shall be punishable by a fine not to exceed $10.00.
Any person wishing to renounce their non-firearms owner status may do so at any time by surrendering their non-firearms owner certificate when purchasing or otherwise acquiring a firearm and joining a state militia.
Possession of a firearm(s) by a person who has registered according to Article #14 above shall be deemed a felony and shall be punishable by a fine of $10,000 and/or one year in prison for each such firearm possessed.
Active law enforcement officials and members of the military who are required to carry firearms in the execution of their responsibilities shall be excused from state militia participation.
There shall be no limit on the number of firearms any individual or organization may possess so long as those firearms are possessed in accordance with the provisions herein.
There is no requirement to register firearms. A state militia membership certificate does not constitute firearms registration, rather it simply attests to an individual’s enrollment in the state militia.
Firearms properly possessed in accordance with the provisions herein may be carried or stored anywhere without limitation except as otherwise prohibited by law.
Individuals who have been convicted of the use of firearms in the commission of any felony, misdemeanor, or infraction shall be prohibited from firearms ownership or militia participation for a period of ten years, after which they will be permitted to appeal to a court with proper jurisdiction for reinstatement of their firearms owner status. Such appeals may be made no more frequently than once every two years.
Out-of-state visitors who are certified members of a state militia in another state may be permitted to carry or possess firearms for a period of no more than thirty days after which they shall be deemed residents who are obligated to join this state’s militia with all its obligations and benefits.
Individuals with disability (ies) that might prevent their active participation in a state militia shall be excused from state militia participation upon demonstration that they can safely operate their firearms despite said disability(ies) and that their disability (ies) hinder(s) their active militia participation despite provisions that may be made to accommodate their incapacitation.

Now, I know some of you are going to say the foregoing infringes on gun ownership rights with all these militia requirements when all you wanted to do was own a gun and shoot things now and then. Well, the Supreme Court certainly believes you deserve the right to own that gun and— subject to a few minimal restrictions—play with it as you see fit. But that pesky old Second Amendment you’ve been waving around all these years deserves some of that same due consideration for state militias that you’ve been demanding for guns. According to the militia part of the Second Amendment, gun ownership appears not only to carry some responsibility but it also calls upon your patriotic duty to defend our Freedom. It seems not to be a free ride.

You can add your own provisions, but remember, the idea is not to infringe on anybody’s right to bear arms. This should not be about gun control, which almost always seems to run afoul of the courts; it’s about organizing constitutionally mandated militias to aim firearms at their constitutionally mandated target. After all, that’s what the Founders must have wanted, or they wouldn’t have stuck those militias in the Second Amendment with firearms where, after all these years, they might actually do us some good.

Tariffs 101

fifty50

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Friday June 07, 2019 · 12:12 PM PDT

2019/06/07 · 12:12

Economics has never been my strong point, but I can’t go on any longer listening to people or a president (who so obviously know far less than I do about economics) try to convince me that tariffs make good political policy.

Tariffs are not meant to be punitive and, as a rule, should not be used to coerce other nations to do something they are opposed to. Tariffs can have unexpected, unintended, and undesirable consequences.
Generally, stronger nations will simply respond to tariffs placed on their goods by placing tariffs on American goods.
Tariffs are supposed to be used to encourage U.S. businesses and products by protecting them from foreign competition. In the early days of this country, tariffs were used to make room for American entrepreneurs to establish industries that would be vital to the economic health of the nation. They worked just as intended then but they don’t work so well now that the U.S. is the economic powerhouse it has become.
Why is that?
The cost of tariffs is paid to the U.S. government by the American importer of foreign products—not the foreign manufacturer or a foreign government—and that cost is then passed on to the consumer by jacking up the retail price of goods.
Sometimes the retailer might even jack the price up higher than the actual tariff because the consumer has been given to understand that, because of the new tariff, the price is going up anyway, and without enough information and a decent calculator, the consumer may not be able to easily determine how much that increase should actually be. Even if she can, the consumer still only has a limited range of choices: buy the foreign product for a new, higher price or pay slightly less for the same American-made product. That’s OK if you don ‘t need that product to get by, but if your life depends somewhat on being able to afford imported food (for example, vegetables from Mexico) you have no choice. Either way, the consumer has to pay more today for exactly the same thing that otherwise cost less yesterday. And, to add insult to injury, that extra cost is effectively a tax increase on the consumer.
Tariffs, as noted above, are supposed to make foreign goods more expensive so as to encourage consumers to favor domestic manufacturers. But many imported products do not have domestic competitors and imposition of tariffs on those products won’t create a rush to invest in startup businesses that will compete for what are likely to be extremely narrow profit margins at best.
In fact, one of the most likely consequences of tariffs is that the countries which those tariffs affect will institute tariffs of their own on American goods and/or take other retaliatory measures.
That’s what happened with U.S. soybeans, which used to be sold to China in great quantity. After the U.S. imposition of tariffs on Chinese products, China now buys most of its soybeans elsewhere—Brazil, for instance—and American soybean farmers have been devastated.
So now our government is committing billions of dollars to bailing out the depressed soybean farmers.
Those billions of dollars come from the federal taxes we all pay to Washington; so a tax on Americans to support American farmers who, before tariffs on non-farm goods, had previously made a nice living from farming without government assistance.
And the same taxpayers who are bailing out the farmers are also paying more to a government that imposed those tariffs for the imported goods they pretty much still have to buy because there are few or no American competitors or because they actually need those now more expensive commodities.
How much more expensive foreign goods become is dependent on domestic manufacturers maintaining the selling prices of domestic goods at levels before the imposition of tariffs on imported goods.
But after imposition of tariffs on foreign goods, prices of domestic goods also tend to rise while still maintaining some competitive advantage.
Conclusion: Poorly thought out tariffs upend a stable economic balance, impose greater taxes on the incomes of ordinary taxpayers, and force American businesses (and farmers) into dire straits.

Need more illustrations? Here are a couple of simple ones—with a dash of math:

Example #1:

Foreign widgets can be bought by importers for $1.00 apiece and are sold to consumers for $2.00 apiece. The $1.00 difference covers the cost of doing business including employees, advertising and distribution, leaving some balance for profit for the domestic widget marketer.
Widgets don’t get made domestically because the cost of domestic manufacturing is too high to be competitive.
Let’s say it would cost $1.50 each to manufacture widgets domestically. At $2.00 each at retail there would be no room for profit and probably wouldn’t even cover the cost of getting them to market. Therefore, nobody wants to make widgets in this country.
Imposing a 25% tariff on widgets might make domestic widgets more attractive to manufacture. Now widgets will cost importers $1.25 each—$1.00 for the foreign manufacturer + $0.25 the importer has to give the U.S. government to pay the tariff.
So now the importer has to raise its retail price to $2.25 to cover the same $1.00 it used to get for advertising, distribution, cost of doing business, and profit.
In the end, the consumer is the one who bears the burden of the tariff, not the foreign manufacturer or the domestic importer. The tariff becomes nothing more than the cost of doing business, essentially no different from distribution costs or advertising costs or paying employees.
But, you might say, now domestic manufacture will be competitive and people will buy domestic widgets and create jobs for Americans.
But, I’ll remind you that foreign widgets, after a 25% tariff, are still so cheap that no one could see a profit manufacturing them domestically. There are no domestic widgets to be found and no one is going to invest in making them domestically because there will be no profit, or so little that it would be foolish to spend money trying.
So let’s raise the tariff to the point where it might be profitable for domestic enterprise, say, 50%.
At 50%, as the foregoing examples provide, imported widgets will cost $2.50 at retail.
Domestic widgets, according to #3 above—if that “industry” can be started—will cost $1.50 a piece to manufacture domestically and another $1.00 to cover the cost of business and leave a worthwhile amount for profit. In other words, U.S. widgets and foreign widgets would now be price competitive and patriotic consumers would be expected to buy American and create more jobs for Americans. Problem solved, no?
Not so fast. We may have just created a domestic widget industry with tariffs on foreign widgets, but at what cost?
Widgets that once cost $2.00 at Walmart are now 25% more expensive retailing at $2.50.
But don’t we now have a genuinely profitable American widget industry?
Not really. This new industry is now heavily subsidized by American consumers, who are paying 25% more for widgets than they used to.
That’s OK, you say, because we are creating jobs for Americans.
But is it OK to tax Americans—that’s what tariffs are: taxes on domestic consumers—to create jobs for other Americans while our general tax policies give the employers of those other Americans ridiculously low corporate tax obligations that allow them even more profit after taxes?
Finally, travelers abroad start to wonder why widgets are so inexpensive in Canada or Europe and no American widgets are sold in those countries because, remember, American widgets can’t be manufactured competitively without a tariff. Canada and Europe aren’t putting tariffs on widgets because they know that tariffs are, in the final analysis, taxes on their own consumers.
But, you say, tariffs punish the widget manufacturing country by hurting its economy. However, in practice, foreign widget manufacturers aren’t really affected by the tariffs because they don’t pay them, Americans do. The foreign widget makers don’t expect an American widget industry to spring up overnight because they recognize how difficult that would be. On many foreign goods, tariffs would have to be exorbitant (100% or more) to really make domestic manufacture a worthwhile investment.
So what really happens? Foreign countries respond to tariffs on their goods by putting tariffs on American goods and selling into other markets to make up for any sales losses American tariffs actually do effect.
Worse, they ignore U.S. markets for imports to their country in response to tariffs on their goods. That’s sort of what happened to U.S. soybean farmers, who watched foreign soybean buyers seek new suppliers in Brazil and elsewhere, leaving domestic soybean farmers with huge losses that have put many of them on the brink of ruin or worse.
To “help out” with those farmers’ huge losses, our government is giving those farmers billions of tax dollars to keep them out of bankruptcy. And, where do those billions come from? From the taxes consumers pay—for example, those taxes tariffs on widgets.
Conclusion: Tariffs don’t work. Most of the time, unless they are carefully thought out, all they do is make a messy situation messier.

Example #2:

American widgets cost just as much to manufacture domestically as it does to import foreign widgets.
Impose a 25% tariff on foreign widgets.
Foreign widgets now sell for $2.25 and American widgets might be super competitive at $2.00 except for one thing.
American widget makers see an opportunity for additional profit by raising their price to $2.15. Still competitive, but squeezing a bit more profit out of the consumer, who is once again paying a needless increase, albeit a smaller one (7.5%). That still has only raised prices on foreign widgets and, while not technically a tax, places a burden on the American consumer to bring profits to an American industry that may not have even previously existed.

Is that how capitalism is supposed to work?

Donald J. Trump’s Record-Setting First 100 Days

fifty50

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Saturday April 22, 2017 · 12:57 PM PDT

2017/04/22 · 12:57

Most vacations taken
Most games of golf played
Tied for fewest walls built
Most publicly accepted bribes from foreign governments
Most unsuccessful U.S. military attacks on Syria
Most Situation Room reproductions in a hotel meeting room
Largest non-nuclear bomb ever dropped
Fewest tax returns released
Most undocumented families torn apart
Most non-Mexicans deported to Mexico
Most Australian Heads of State insulted
Most Turkish autocrats congratulated
Most Russian agents awarded U.S. high-security clearances
Most sons-in-law awarded vague positions of authority
Most nominations of justices to stolen Supreme Court seats
Most sexual assault behavior excused
Most press conferences avoided
Most Russian autocrats praised
Most self-dealing dealt
Most Obamacare repeal bills abandoned
Most unspecified tax cuts for the wealthy delayed
Most Republican riffraff invited to the White House
Most parodies by Alec Baldwin generated
Most lies told per day in office
Most lies contradicted per day in office
Most legal settlements by a sitting president with a fake university
Most unqualified nominees to Cabinet
Most perjured attorneys general nominated and confirmed
Most use of made-up words
Longest ties worn
Most people blinded to reality
Most winning accomplished in his head
Most racists in high places
Most presidential sons of former presidents assured they will not be worst president ever
Most tax returns released to Rachel Maddow by unidentified sources
First president awake at 3:00am and unable to answer phone because he's Tweeting
Most softball questions from Fox News
Most aircraft carriers lost
Most facts learned in ten minutes about North Korea from a Chinese Head of State
Most rich people claiming to work for the benefit of those who are not rich
Most small hands
Most credit taken for jobs created by others
Most health plans proposed without actual detail
Most science rejected
Most swamps drained and restocked with bigger alligators
Most legislative aspirations faked with Executive Orders
Most “fake” news that turned out to be real
Most “real” news that turned out to be fake
Most pussy hats caused to be knitted
Most other people blamed for mistakes and miscalculations
Most credit taken for other people's accomplishments
Most former black presidents blamed for stuff they didn’t do
Most Vice-Presidents who can’t drink or dine with other women without their wife present
Most Secretaries of State shadowed by a presidential relative
Most coal miners convinced they will mine “clean” coal from mines already abandoned by coal companies in favor of automated strip mining
Most First Ladies who don't appear except as arm candy
Most people tired of winning

Guns and Ballots

fifty50

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Wednesday June 15, 2016 · 5:58 PM PDT

2016/06/15 · 17:58

The Republican blockage of any restrictions on the constitutional right to buy, own and use any sort of firearm short of a fully automatic .50 caliber machine gun is based on the presumedly unlimited sanctity of the Second Amendment. They argue it would be wrong to limit gun ownership to a few in order to preserve the right of all to have a gun for whatever reason despite the Constitution's stated purpose that citizens need to be armed to provide for an adequate militia, a purpose rendered invalid by our modern standing army, something unwanted by the Founding Fathers.

However, these same Republicans see nothing wrong in blocking the Constitutional sanctity of the right to vote for hundreds of thousands of citizens based on the slim possibility that a paltry few might misuse their franchise. Republicans even feel brave enough to undermine their specious argument by stating publicly that their obstructionist election rules will (and are intended to) limit votes by and for Democrats.

Is the right to own a gun more precious than the right to vote? Or is the Constitution nothing more than a Republican excuse to protect their own self-interest?

Republicans seem devoted to the Constitution only insofar as it enforces and protects what they want or don't want with no real regard for the document as anything more than a set of flexible "rules" to fool the electorate into believing their government is actually being run in some sort of legitimately fair manner.

Cheney Persuasively Rebuts Torture Claims

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Thursday December 11, 2014 · 8:49 AM PST

2014/12/11 · 08:49

In an appearance last night on Sean Hannity’s Fox News program, former Vice President Dick Cheney emphatically denied he was former Vice President Dick Cheney.

“There can be no doubt,” Mr. Cheney said in a prepared statement, “that we are two different people with distinctly different DNA.”

To support his claim, Mr. Cheney volunteered to produce a sample of DNA from his recently acquired heart for comparison. As an added feature of this procedure, Mr. Cheney expected the DNA extraction from his heart would also settle the controversy over whether or not he actually had one.

“Just undergoing this surgical procedure will be sheer torture,” Mr. Cheney claimed, “but it will be worth it to settle these ridiculous assertions” that he was once a strong proponent of the CIA’s torture program "currently being debated."

In response to a question from Mr. Hannity about equating surgery with torture, Mr. Cheney explained that he intends to undergo the procedure without anesthesia in order to conserve the country’s supply of sedative medication for his supporters.

“It might hurt a bit, but the information it will provide, and the people it will protect, will most certainly prove worthwhile,” Mr. Cheney said.

Mr. Hannity thanked the former Vice President for letting the nation know who he really wasn't and effectively putting to rest any presumption that he had played a part in the CIA's torture program, "which we all now know never actually existed in the first place."

Should Free Speech Be A Weapon?

fifty50

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Friday June 27, 2014 · 1:13 PM PDT

2014/06/27 · 13:13

Instead of balancing free speech and privacy in its Massachusetts buffer-zone decision, the Supreme Court has chosen to bolster the protection of stalkers at the expense of our right to be reasonably left alone. The Constitution certainly gives you the right to free speech and free association, but not the right to get up in my face and demand I pay attention. Your right to tell me what you think is important but does not include the right to make sure I listen to you. Just because someone chooses to appear in public, for whatever reason, does not mean he or she surrenders any expectation of unencumbered legitimate and peaceful navigation.

However, the Supreme's decision leads me to wonder what position the Court (and legislatures) might take if gun control advocates were to picket potential gun store customers in the same way abortion clinics are harassed.

Perhaps, it is time to adopt the tactics of the unreasonable if we are condemned to live in an unreasonable world.

These are perilous times

fifty50

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Monday April 20, 2009 · 11:42 AM PDT

2009/04/20 · 11:42

I sent the following letter to Barack Obama today. I urge you all to write as well. If you don't want to write your own letter, and agree with what I wrote, copy my letter and endorse it as expressing your views. But, don't do nothing. These are perilous times.

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