My Sick, Inflamed Country — America the Unreasonable? The Ungovernable?

There is a malady which plagues my country.

It is the malady of political division — of intense political ideology, and the denunciation of others because they disagree with you.

Where will you find the source of this division? In the political extremes. In our two party political system, there are the populist Republicans who follow Donald Trump denounce any Republicans who didn’t follow Trump, in addition to all Democrats. Similarly, there are the progressive Democrats who denounce any moderate Democrats who don’t toe the “anti-racism” line of far left politics, as well as all Republicans.

It used to be that moderate Democrats and Republicans could find common ground and help enact the compromises which democratic government requires. Now that is increasingly difficult because of the angry activist bases of both parties — the Trumpkins and the AOC acolytes. Posturing in front of social media, preening for their supporters, injecting poison and contempt into political debate; everything is a battle to the death for them.

Now I would normally not care. Extremists and ideologues are new neither to the world generally nor to the United States specifically.

But these ideological extremes are contributing to an environment of ungovernability in America. If there can be no compromise or working with those from the other political party, then the nation cannot pass laws or form policies for the public good. It is a race to the bottom which ends in civil war. 

Right now we are in a sort of cold civil war in the United States. 

“So let the assholes argue politics until they’re red in the face, as if they were 20-years old debating late into the night with their college dorm dormmates!” you might tell me.

True enough, dear reader. 

But let me look at two of the hot button issues in America, and to show how extreme ideological partisanship makes it next to impossible to craft effective legislation. We will look at abortion and gun control.

ABORTION

I have talked often about the abortion controversey in the past, and it truly is like no other. Unfortunately, the extremes on both sides use theory to defend their stances. 

The pro-abortion forces claim that it is a woman’s individual choice and right to carry to term or terminate her pregnancy, for whatever reason at whatever time in the pregnancy. She has a right to privacy, and that is the end of the discussion.

The anti-abortion side claims that life starts at conception, and any means by which you end a pregnancy is tantamount to murder. Abortion is murder, period. It does not matter whether it is on the first day of pregnancy or the last day. It is the same thing. It is the right to life.

This is the clash of absolute rights which precludes any middle ground. It is the victory of legalistic theory over real life experience.

To me, and to most people, there is a HUGE difference between a blastocyst hours after conception, and a full-term baby a few hours before birth. To me, and to most people, it is a very different act to terminate the life of a fetus at the beginning of pregnancy versus the end of pregnancy. How much change does a fetus undergo from its earliest moments compared to right before birth? Look, for example, at the following graphic:

Do you see any change from the beginning and the end? I sure do.

The “right to privacy” of a woman over her body versus “the right to life” of another life growing inside her in one going nowhere, practically speaking. One living being inside another, the rights of one versus the other: there is no other debate like the abortion one. It can get very complicated very quickly.

But trying to ban all abortions even in the earliest stages of pregnancy is impractical and a nonstarter. Women and men will continue to collaborate to engender unwanted pregnancies; couples are too often dumb and irresponsible, especialy when they are young. Nothing has ever shown me that this will change.  And if a woman “gets in trouble” and becomes “unhappily pregnant,” she should be able to terminate her pregnancy.

The State of Texas recently passed bill S.B. 8, which bans abortion after doctors can detect a fetal heartbeat, about six weeks into a pregnancy. It is among the most restrictive laws in the country with respect to abortion, and there is an excellent chance the Supreme Court will strike it down as violating its previous rulings in Roe vs. Wade. Even more worrisome, it allows private citizens to sue others over it — setting up an all-against-all vigilante-like method of enforcing the law. S.B. 8 encouraging Texans to sue other Texans who try to get an abortion seems to me a most imprudent law. But it is an end-around attempt to circumvent Roe vs. Wade, and to ban all abortions in the state eventually. It is stupid. If Texas persists in this, I would even send money to organizations which would send money to Texan women to buy mifepristone and misoprostol through the mail so they could end their own pregnancies at home. I believe, as did Obama, that abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare,” at least until around 22 weeks. Then increasingly it should be forbidden, except in rare and exceptional cases.

Other countries have much more common-sense laws. They make it easy to get abortions in the earliest stages of pregnancy, and then it gets harder — and then impossible — the closer you get to full-term.

That is the road we should follow — the rest are details, which can and should be negotiated through the political process.

It is what I think after having read about and taught this controversy for decades.

It seems so simple you wonder why it would warrant endless debate.

But the pro- or anti- abotion activists scream and rant and protest, and try to get ALL of what they want — and throw the opposite side into the political wilderness — or “cancel” them, denouncing them as unacceptable and illegitimate — “enemies,” or maybe even kill them. (Memo to such: the other side ain’t going away. Unless you kill them.)

The temper of political anger is white hot.

So it will be hard if not impossible to create effective legislation in such a hostile climate of ideological confrontation.

The problem is not so much the American political system. The problem is more the American people, or at least a significant portion of that people — the Trumpkin populist Right versus the AOC activist Left.

Polls show that it is still a minority of Americans who occupy these hostile camps. 

There are plenty — even a majority of the population — of middle ground Americans who do not look at politics as a life-or-death struggle. So why do the politically inflamed seem to get all the attention?

FIREARMS LAW

Another culture war topic would be gun laws and gun control.

I will focus again on the State of Texas.

In June 2021 state legislature passed House Bill 1927 which eliminated the need to obtain a license to carry a gun if a person is not prohibited from owning a firearm by state or federal law. This is better known as “Constitutional Carry,” and in effect it means anybody in Texas, other than certain “prohibited persons” (ie. convicted felons or violent misdemeanants, those with restraining orders against them, the severely mentally ill, etc.) can carry a loaded firearm in public, concealed or openly in a holster, starting on September 1, 2021.

This seems to me a bad law. I do not support “Constitutional Carry.”

It was not exactly like Texas was hostile to the rights of Texan gun owners before. To be able to carry a concealed weapon, you merely had to pass a course of 12 hours of instruction and quality at the range with your weapon. Go through a background check to make sure no criminals get the license.

If you are going to have the power of carrying a weapon in public, it should be incumbent on you to get the training. And to be relatively trustworthy. To be able to prove basic marksmanship skills. To know the law on firearms and deadly force.

That seems eminently reasonable.

Texas should keep the licensing requirement.

Law-abiding citizens with clean criminal records who care enough to pay for and undergo the training should be able to carry a weapon concealed, in my opinion. But it is a bad idea to carry it openly. Keep it away from neighbors who might panic at the sight of a gun, but be able to protect yourself from gross bodily injury if someone tries to rob and kill you.

That is reasonable.

Is it really moving forward to allow in Texas anyone to carry a gun — concealed, or openly on the hip — without any training whatsoever. I say, “no.”

2nd Amendment activists will claim that Constitutional Carry in Texas is a victory for the Bill of Rights. But all the rights guaranteed in the Constitution are subject to regulation. And reasonable regulations should be in place. Is Constitutional Carry “reasonable”?

All the grandmas and young men and middle-aged men with paunches carrying guns with next to no training? Do they know the laws about firearms and the use of deadly force? Have they qualified at the range, showing they have basic knowledge and marksmanship skills? If the power to carry a gun in public comes with the responsibility to know what you are doing, have they proved that?

No.

Don’t get me started on persons bringing guns to protests and openly carrying (brandishing?) them — nobody should be doing that. You are asking for trouble. Even if it is legal, it is just dumb. Just because open carry is legal does not make it smart. Keep your weapon concealed, I say. Use it only in the last desperate measure to save your life.

There are sixteen states that have Constitutional Carry, and they are among the most conservative in the republic. In this regard Texas, and other states, have the right to make their own laws. But it is not the law I would want to live under.

And I imagine I would have 2nd Amendment activists up in my grill wanting to dispute this. Fine.

But there is also the opposite extreme.

The City of New York will almost universally deny any citizen the right to carry a firearm concealed. Same with the County of Alameda, where Oakland is located. Until very recently, next to nobody in Los Angeles County could get a license to carry a firearm in public.

Even those with spotless criminal records and “good moral character” living in high-crimes areas were denied Carrying a Concealed Weapon (CCW) permits.

These are some of the most liberal places in the country, and they profess that with such strict CCW laws they are trying to limit the amount of guns on the street.

That is the theory, at least.

But the reality in Oakland or Los Angeles or New York is that while very few private citizens carry legally handguns, PLENTY of criminals carry them illegally. The murder rates in those places have exploded in the past few years. There is enormous gun violence there, almost all of it coming from a relatively small number of dangerous street criminals. There are guns everywhere. But the guns are in the hands of violent gang members, not law abiding citizens.

Those would seem to be the places where law-abiding citizens who qualify and receive training SHOULD have the option to carry a concealed weapon. They have a good reason to want to carry one.

But for ideological reasons the powers-that-be in those places like New York or Alameda County refuse to give out CCWs, unless the applicant is politically connected or a big donor or something. Is this a violation of the 2nd Amendment rights of the law-abiding members of those communities? What reasonable case is to be made for the wholesale denial of CCW licenses to citizens of “good moral character” in liberal cities with sky-high high crime rates?

It is a good question.

It is what the Supreme Court is looking at currently.

The politicians in those liberal enclaves have their own armed police security. But they would deny law-abiding citizens on the streets the same right to be armed in their self-protection?

If allowing almost everyone the right to carry a gun almost anywhere is unreasonable, is almost universally restricting the ability to carry a gun for everyone also unreasonable?

Where is Aristotle’s “Golden Mean” with respect to gun laws?

Chicago and the District of Columbia got themselves in hot water by going too far in trying to ban mere ownership of handguns in the home. They got District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. City of Chicago for their trouble, and an affirmation of the 2nd Amendment rights for individuals. These ultra-liberal localities court disaster when they overreach. Case in point: New York City is now in hot water in the United States Supreme Court in the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen case. New York invited the lawsuit by denying close to 100% of their CCW applications. Now the federal courts might tell them what their gun laws will be.

Yikes.

I have a friend in Los Angeles County who for a long time has wanted a CCW. He has good reasons for wanting one, and he must be just about the best candidate ever. But LA County would not give him one. It was nothing personal — they hardly ever gave anyone a CCW. It was their policy. LA County (like Washington DC, Oakland, Chicago, etc) doesn’t like guns and doesn’t want more of them on the streets, or so they say. It did not matter if the murder rate was very high on the streets there, or that many lived daily in fear for their lives from violent crime — or that they are cutting funding for policing, providing less protection for residents. It did not matter that the streets were full of guns, but only the lawbreakers were carrying them, not the law-abiding. The issuing agency, the Los Angeles County Sheriff, refused virtually all CCW requests. Period. (Until recently.)

That seems unreasonable to me.

My friend in LA County SHOULD be able to get a CCW permit. He has his application in, and hopefully LA County Sheriff Alex Villanueva will issue him one relatively soon. I will keep my fingers crossed. Ventura County in California, where I live, right next to LA County, gives out CCW licenses. They take a good look at applicants and have strict standards, but if you have a clear criminal record and get the training they will give you a license to carry a firearm. That is reasonable.

My fear is that the Supreme Court will rule on the constitutionality of banning nearly all CCW requests this fall in the Bruen case, and then all sorts of liberals who don’t know a handgun from a handpump will have opinions. The issue will become politicized in a way that it was not previously. Persons who don’t know the difference between “concealed carry” and “open carry,” or “shall issue” versus “may issue,” will assume a certain position because that is what “liberals” or “conservatives” are supposed to think on the issue. Opinions will harden. Reasonable positions, and nuanced opinions, will become impossible.

What does this look like in practice? Doctrinaire conservatives dislike abortion and want the practice banned — period. Activist liberals dislike guns and don’t want them around — period. Many conservatives tend to be strong 2nd Amendment supporters; many liberals strongly support Roe v. Wade and women’s reproductive rights — the predictable (and boring) ruts of ideological conformity in American politics. So it goes. I can’t remember when it was otherwise.

As for me, I have complicated feelings about both after having thought them through over decades. I end up in the middle on both abortion and gun control. Let women get abortions, if they want, the earlier in the pregnancy the better. Let law-abiding, trained, and licensed citizens conceal carry, if they want. We have had legal abortion since 1973; the nation has not fallen apart. Women can make decisions about whether they want to become a mother or not. Similarly, most parts of the county allow some form of CCW and have for decades, and those so licensed have not contributed to the murder rate. CCW holders are almost never the ones engaging in illegal homicide. CCW Americans are among the most law-abiding persons in the land. It should not be this hard to figure out reasonable abortion and gun control laws.

But our politicians and legislatures are so riven and unreasonable that instead we go to the law courts for remedy.

It is, in my opinion, unfortunate that we rely on the United States Supreme Court to rule on what rights are, and how they might be reasonably regulated. State and federal legislatures should be able to negotiate what these limits should be.

So let me repeat myself: If you are unhappily pregnant, you should be able to get an abortion — the sooner in the pregnancy, the better. If you have a clean criminal record and will get the training, you should be able to get a CCW. This seems reasonable.

But reason seems to matter little in real life. Ideological antagonisms towards abortion or guns encourage politicians to act the demagogue. They play to the extremes to fire up the party faithful, and so they paint the opposition in the worst possible light: us versus them. So then politicians are unable to compromise and enact reasonable laws.

Again, it is the American people and the politicians they elect who are to blame, not the political structures by themselves.

The faction of Donald Trump and the faction of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Inflammatory posts on social media. ”Owning the libs” or “fighting fascism.”

My sick, inflamed country.

Unamenable to reason.

Maybe ungovernable?

Why?

The weaponization of ideology.

The demonization of the other side. 

It is so disappointing I have trouble even reading the newspaper anymore. I skip almost all the articles. I am not going to learn anything new. It is more of the same negativity and complaining and denouncing.

Maybe it comes down again to social media posts and postcard sized political stances on it. The lack of nuance and complexity in simplistic political slogans: catchy rallying cries on car bumpers. Us-versus-them confrontation in toxic identity politics. It is as if my country is made up of enraged simpletons. 

Or does political anger make one into a simplistic black-or-write thinker? Unable to appreciate the pastel colors?

Does it make it hard to be a reasonable person?

Impossible?

At any rate, the United States Supreme Court seems ready this fall to rule on both the Texas abortion ban and the New York concealed permit ban this fall.

We  Americans —  who seem unable to negotiate this through our legislatures — want unelected judges to tell us what our rights are under the law. 

That is putting a lot of pressure on one branch of our government, and the least democratic one at that.

We shall see.

Maybe if Congress is increasingly dysfunctional with too many unreasonable members, the Supreme Court will come out looking better. The result might be more reasonable?

That did not work out well in the 1850s during a similar time of political polarization and institutional dysfunction.

But there will be more rancor after these Supreme Court decisions, almost for sure.

And the American people, especially the most politically passionate, the populist Right and the activist Left, are to blame.

Our sick, inflamed country.

So unreasonable.

So ungovernable?

Moderates of the left and the right should unite to counter the extremes which are pulling down our country. Unlike the extremes, we can compromise and do business with each other.

Why is it so hard to do this?

The polls show we moderates have the numbers.

Let us exert our influence and get the business of America done.

Enough with the extremes.

---