Egocide

The Progressive project of the post-industrial era could be aptly described as a soft, yet violent, attempt to collectively rob mankind of his virtue.

On the Two-Fold Base of Power in the Democratic State

One of the interesting parallels between various strands of Marxism and libertarianism is a focus on reading into formal and political history through a form of class analysis. Marx' own dialectic deviated sharply from the dominant Hegelian/Kantian dialectic of the time. He believed the latter was not sufficiently grounded in the material reality of the life and history of human beings. His historically materialist views posited that our common historical and political struggle as a species could be seen through the lens of a two-fold struggle between the owners of production and the mass of laborers who worked to produce.

While there is no libertarian dialectic that I'm aware of, or at least not one with any particularly impressive predictive power, there is certainly a class-based bifurcation (or series thereof) which plays heavily into historical insights of various libertarian theorists. For such libertarians, the base of power is not so easily confined to the conflicting classes of the Marxian struggle. Instead, if we were to draw a narrow line between the struggle of the powerful and the powerless, we would get a group who turns the wheels of the state and then a group who is largely passive in this regard. Here is where we perceive the truly powerful and the truly powerless.

For libertarians, this is both good and bad news. The good news is that (we believe) this is a much more robust framework to analyze things in a political/historical context. The bad news is that, given the now-traditional Marxian conception of class-struggle, we are left with a framework that seems perhaps inadvertently complicated, and even ambiguous in some cases. Of course, neither of these are necessarily true - but such perceptions are engendered nevertheless.

In the modern democratic republic, the political power of the state is underlied and sanctioned by both the (largely laboring) masses whom at least nominally extend the reigns to politicians and the (largely capitalizing) economic power-brokers who extend and direct the influence of seated politicians. There is no unilateral pull in the realm of state power. Each of these two larger groups is rife with subgroups that have their own politically motivated ends; often ends that work to the detriment of others within the same larger sphere. And then we have people of all stripes who are either largely apathetic, disempowered (politically), or antagonistic towards the state who don't turn the gears of its authority in any particular direction at all.

Some of the rich seek to disenfranchise the poor. Some of the poor seek to disenfranchise the rich. Some of the rich seek to subvert other groups of rich people for personal gain. Some of the poor seek to subvert other groups of poor people for personal gain. Some fight for the rights of themselves. Some fight for the rights of others. Some fight for favors for themselves. Some fight for favors for others.

The lines of division, in the Marxian conception, is not as clear as it's made out to be. An analysis of the division between labor and capital would be more interesting in the absence of monopolistic political institutions. But, as we are undoubtedly seated with the latter, the materialist interpretation of history by Marxists of many stripes turns out to be more troubling. These divisions may provide meaningful detail on the direction and flavor of political power. The thought that it conceptually binds it, however, is much more contentious.

Confusing Notions

I didn't catch the name of the author or article, but a cursory reading of a recent NYT article on one of my regular radio shows had me kind of bewildered. The point of said article, from what I gather, was that the Constitution, or rather strict observance of the Constitution, was a hinderence upon society, and that we shouldn't regard it so sacredly. Admitedly, not a novel idea, but one worth talking about.

Where it went off the rails for me was when something like the following (paraphrasing) was said:

"It's just silly to think that circumventing or ignoring the Constitution would somehow return us to a Hobbesian state of nature..."

Alright...what political subset of people are claiming that? I'm no expert on Hobbes, but wasn't his argument that a strong central authority was needed to rescue us from such a state of nature? So how would ignoring the document that presumably narrowly defines and limits such an authority's power throw us back in the direction of "nature"?

The argument for ignoring the Constitution (in this context) is an argument for loosening the self-imposed reigns of government; to give it more sweeping power. By a Hobbesian account, or at least my understanding of such, that kind of move would likely take us even further away from that dreaded "state of nature" thing. Note that my argument isn't that Hobbes is correct. It just seems odd to me to invoke the philosophic bent of an individual and then apply it in a prima facie backwards manner.

I'm sure that I'm missing some bit of additional context here.

Reflection on Vulgar Libertarianism

The seemingly rising prominence of left-libertarianism on the interwebz has given lots of self-professed "plum-line" libertarians pause for thought. And, for the most part, rightfully so. There are lots of libertarians who easily fall into the habit of supporting or denouncing things with the most superficial of litmus tests. From dismissing and excoriating the downtrodden to throwing down for any corporate entity that comes under public fire, libertarians have a habit of being the contrarians - even if it engenders inconsistent lines of thought.

It's hard to pinpoint exactly why this is the dominant tendency in these circles. I think a lot of it could be chalked up to transition costs. Most modern American libertarians start out on the political right. And as their thoughts on the state radicalize, then maybe so too do their thoughts on its victims and beneficiaries. That isn't so bad in and of itself (heightened awareness). But you can certainly have a radicalized ideology without transforming legitimate views into caricatures of themselves.

Sometimes people really do struggle with the most basic things in life (a shock, I know). And sometimes companies really do have bad practices or treat their employees poorly. The flaw with the more right-leaning versions of libertarianism is that there is this tendency to believe that if you acknowledge such social problems that you are ceding ground. But this is, in fact, the very notion that ideologically binds the non-libertarians to the Hobbesian state. The refusal to acknowledge these problems is, too often, just a shadow cast in the wake of a deeper concession - that the state is the only manner in which such problems could be rectified. I don't think this will prove to be a winning strategy in the long-run.

But, of course, it's also true enough that there really are many people across the libertarian spectrum who do buy into these "vulgar" (as left-libertarians have dubbed it) ideas. And while they might feel they're piercing some kind of politically correct veil, they're also helping to ensure a shaky foundation for the movement as a whole. There's little excuse for it generally, and that left-libertarians have brought it to the table should be noted (with humility and gratitude). They've provided an excellent source of perspective for swaths of radical libertarians out there. They've probably changed the course of the movement for the better, almost without a doubt. However, I believe right-leaning and more neutral radical libertarians could offer some humble criticisms in return.

My experiences with left-libertarians (a few excluded) leads me to believe there is a "vulgar" type of libertarianism that creeps within their community as well. It is the inverse of the well-noted pandemic in right-libertarianism. Instead of blindly supporting capital and excoriating labor, there is a tendency to blindly support labor and excoriate capital. I don't make these accusations carelessly, as left-libertarians bring light to a lot of issues and inconsistencies that dominate much of libertarian thought. But nevertheless, among them is surely the analog of right-libertarian "vulgarism." And while it's important that they point out that there are certainly both lower and higher order social problems that exist and that can be dispensed of in serious ways without aggression (in the libertarian sense), it doesn't follow that all of the problems that they point to are truly problems in a politically meaningful sense, or that the supposedly non-aggressive solutions to them are righteous.

This phenomenon extends to non-economic portions of the social front as well. Too often we see libertarian in-fighting around tenets of political correctness. While I'm inclined to believe that there really is something to the concepts that generate politically correct thought (from sexism to racism and all kinds of other matters of prejudice), I'm not quite sure that either side is appropriately weighing the scope of each individual issue at hand. Right-libertarians, for instance, are sometimes automatically dismissive of prevailing forms of sexism, while left-libertarians seem to find a lot of it that isn't (obviously) apparent. And this says nothing of the post-collision detractions pointed at one another, which often come across as equally nonsensical and intolerant. No, I don't think it's "right" when men generalize or demean women. But I also don't think it's right that we gun for some type of "non-violent" social exodus of such people either. It's one thing to push in the direction of good will and understanding. It's another to imprison people in their own thoughts and feelings for fear of ostracism.

I'm not going to pretend lines like that don't get blurry either. There really are people who proceed with bigotry and malice, and an evolution of tried solutions might reach towards public condemnation and excoriation. On the other hand, there really do seem like many instances where we're left trying to prove too much about the motivations of people, and not leaving them much room for tolerance and temperance in our judgment. I don't want people to have values that are objectionable to my own. But I also don't want to live in a world where all objectionable values are met with strong castigation either. Libertarianism is rife with schisms. The bridges between its factions aren't going to be easy to build, if they can be built at all. But even the most contentious slivers therein bring something to the table - they tend to better ground each other with small concessions and temperance. It's then not that surprising that for all left-libertarianism has provided the movement in terms of variance in perspective, the movement will inevitably push back against it with it's own (hopefully coherent) criticisms. This is a start.

There Should be Awards for Stuff Like This

Alright - I had a Lysander Spooner quote that ended up in my FaceBook feed earlier today, and I made the mistake of thinking that it might be fun to look at the comments. Boy was I ever wrong.

The point in question was of the contractual nature of the Constitution and who it binds and in what manner it does so. Spooner, of course, claims that the supposed binding of the people to the power and privilege of the federal government thus constituted is nonsensical according to our most basic ethical notions. Now, some people were dismissing this out of hand; implying that the quote made no sense because the Constitution does not bind "the people", but rather binds the government. Clearly they were either not thinking hard about the considerable obligations entailed in giving the government specified (or plenary) powers, or they were conflating the Bill of Rights with the Constitution. (To be clear, I'm aware that the Bill of Rights is part of the Constitution - but you could understand how someone would be led to say such a thing if they were simply thinking of the Bill of Rights by itself.)

So, I tried to clear up both points - to illuminate the supposed "binding" which Spooner was seeking to criticize, and which I would also criticize. But we all know that no good deed goes unpunished. I immediately started to get responses from one person who apparently didn't get that I was simply trying to make some more subtle clarifications so that Spooner's point could be better grasped by the aforementioned commenters. He apparently thought, because I showed the manner in which people might feel that they were "bound" by such a document, that I was actually making a normative case for why this would be so. He then proceeded, in subsequent responses, to illustrate the finer points of libertarianism-101. I witnessed such breathtakingly nuanced arguments as:

" The Constitution is a compact between the States and National Government."
"The Bill of rights is for the common man."
" Rights are inalienable."
" Natural Law trumps Positive Law."

 I'm not sure exactly who he thought he was arguing with. I have to think it wouldn't take much mental fortitude to figure out that I was in agreement with the initial criticism Spooner was laying out, and simply trying to help point people I felt were confused in the right direction. But apparently I'm wrong. I'd like to claim surprise but this happens constantly on FaceBook and blog comments - particularly among libertarians. We have a propensity to proselytize. It's just unfortunate that it's all too often, even unwittingly at times, to each other. There are certainly little nuances here and there that we bicker about. And that's fine as far as it goes. But when I get lectured about how rights are inalienable, or how positive law supervenes onto natural law something is wrong.

Plus, let's face it, there's something really creepy about people turning common nouns into proper nouns...who trusts libertarians who capitalize the words "National Government?"

Anyways, this wasn't even the main point of the post here. What I wanted to get at was something that was posted way after I had already given up on all humanity. One of the last comments in the thread was the following:

"Nothing more ironic than to see Americans dismiss the U.S. Constitution while they enjoy the freedoms and liberties to do so publicly which are uniquely guaranteed by it. Dismiss the people who are currently corrupting our government, but don't be so ignorant as to think that this is what our forefathers envisioned. Getting back to the Constitution and away from this perversion we call a Congress is the only hope for our future."

Alright, come on people! I can't even make this shit up! This was a (I can only assume) serious response...from a human being...on the subject of the Constitution...directed at LYSANDER SPOONER! This is the type of thing that really just brings out every ounce of misanthropy I can bear to will. It's not that I think that there is no argument for the Constitution, or against Spooner. Far from it. I'd imagine there are plenty of reasonable objections. But this is just willful ignorance at best. He doesn't even realize that what is probably Spooner's most tangible legacy is a short piece that attempts to spearhead this claim precisely, and leave it bleeding and eventually dead. The better part of his entire argument against the Constitution serves to highlight the incredible irony of statements like the one above.

The whole point of the document (the Constitution), and this coincides with the claims of its supporters, is to place strict limits on what government can and cannot do. By asking us to instead dismiss that government's current administrators is to vindicate Spooner's criticism entirely. Not only does the above argument do nothing to put a stop to Spooner's home-run, it gleefully helps to usher the ball over the fence. To say that not replying would have been better is to say too little. I'll instead go ahead and say that there could have been almost no worse response than that. That's how bad it was.

But I'll let you be the judge. You can read Spooner's words for yourself as he takes his victory lap around the bases:

"Inasmuch as the Constitution was never signed, nor agreed to, by anybody, as a contract, and therefore never bound anybody, and is now binding upon nobody; and is, moreover, such an one as no people can ever hereafter be expected to consent to, except as they may be forced to do so at the point of the bayonet, it is perhaps of no importance what its true legal meaning, as a contract, is. Nevertheless, the writer thinks it proper to say that, in his opinion, the Constitution is no such instrument as it has generally been assumed to be; but that by false interpretations, and naked usurpations, the government has been made in practice a very widely, and almost wholly, different thing from what the Constitution itself purports to authorize. He has heretofore written much, and could write much more, to prove that such is the truth. But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain — that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist."

Gratitude for the Highwaymen

There's been a lot of shifting and posturing lately around the cut-off and transition dates that permeate the second quarter of the fiscal year. But the newest occupation of idle hands and minds is raising hell over their first paycheck of the year being smaller. There were several "temporary tax cuts" which were extended recently, but one that wasn't was the temporary cut on Social Security taxes (about 2%). It's not a gigantic amount but it's considerable enough to be noticed and apparently lamented.

I don't have too much of a problem with people making a fuss about that publicly. Frankly, I'm more concerned about the federal government's spending than their taxing (as the latter simply follows from the former in one way or another), but I can't help but be a little off-put by the reactions of some people to the "fussing" of others. Their retorts simply aren't substantive.

The bread and butter of the collective response so far has been to, first, reiterate the historical arc of how the temporary tax cut came to be, and , secondly, lambaste dissenters for not being grateful for whatever temporary reprieve from said taxation that they had enjoyed the previous two years. This rubs me the wrong way for a couple of different reasons.

As I alluded to above, taxation itself isn't the issue per se. The government gets its funding by borrowing and taxing. But even when it borrows, it's merely taxing inter-temporally  If I use a credit card to pay for something, I'm merely transferring my costs to myself in the future, at a premium. In the case of the card, my savings in the present is much higher than 2%. But it is not a gift. I'm still on the line for that bill. I am in debt. So it is with tax cuts. They are deferrals of payment. When and how the payment materializes is trivial to that point. And this is why I believe serious fiscal discourse should focus on spending as opposed to revenue.

However, the main issue I take with the casual retorts is that they are laden with an inherent assumption that, once unearthed, makes their argument quite petty and meaningless. For the sake of argument, let's assume that the government was fiscally responsible and more closely bound spending and revenue. What is on the table for discussion is this 2% payroll tax increase. Percentages are relative. To say that the taxpayer should be "grateful" for the tax rates we "enjoyed" during the last two years is to assume that the current rate of taxation is optimal or correct. But that discussion isn't being had. The implication is that any deviation from the baseline is a gift from government, and less that we should otherwise be paying. But what is the grounding for that?

To illustrate my point, assume that baseline taxation would have been twice as high. I think that most people would consider that level of taxation oppressive. And if there was a similar lapse in a 2% tax cut you might expect that dissension would be more common. And yet that would not follow from the logic being currently employed. There's nothing about their argument that says that we shouldn't also be grateful for that 2% reprieve in the hypothetical scenario.

And you may say, "But of course, that is because we're now talking about ridiculously high taxes..."

Ah, but that's precisely my point. The argument in question, which is being used against current dissenters, makes no account of the appropriate level of taxation. It only holds so long as the current level of taxation and/or spending is acceptable. If it isn't, then such an argument falls apart under it's own weight.

Of course, I'm not arguing (here) about what is or isn't an appropriate level of taxation. I simply wanted to point out that, too often, conversations like this are rife with implicit assumptions - many of which are either incoherent or at the least not definitive. And way too often we simply don't question such premises, and instead set our dialectical fortifications within the framework they've already established with the question itself. I would know because I fall victim to it all the time. But if you're cognizant enough to step back and criticize such framing, you can stop a silly argument in its tracks and, more importantly, watch the scales fall from the eyes of onlookers.

Pick a Number; Any Number

With all the ink that has been spilt on this particular subject in the last three days, it's hard to imagine I'd have anything non-superfluous to contribute to the conversation. And my general disposition to shy away from all things reactionary has led me to be pretty silent on issues surrounding Friday's events - particularly on more sociable public outlets. But I feel like I should at least try to put something together, maybe for my own personal edification. There's quite a bit of disconnect out there. That much is evident from the reactions I've been seeing. And maybe that's par for the course. We need to be compassionate and understanding of the various reactions we're witnessing. But we need to also not let our emotions excessively plague our reason. There are some reactions which really are tasteless, inappropriate, or more importantly just thoughtless. They should not be left unabated.

Most of the reactions seem to be centered around gun-control. This kind of talk spikes every time such an incident occurs. But people seem to be particularly vociferous this time around. Things are publicly mounting in the direction of some kind of new federal legislation.

One of the things I find most disturbing about a lot of what I read from gun-control advocates (and maybe I get this from my father), is that a lot of them are fairly clueless about both firearms and the Second Amendment. Regarding the latter, you see an inordinate amount of people ask why you would need firearms such as X or Y in order to be able to hunt. And, not only that, but they also misconstrue this to be the argument of most firearm advocates - that they are simply vested in reserving the right to hunt or shoot for sport. Now, it's true enough that there are plenty of gun-owners for which this is the extent of their interest. But I'd hesitate to say that particular group is in the majority among them. And, in either case, sport has little or nothing at all to do with the Second Amendment.

Regarding the former, it's clear that a good amount of people don't understand the basic functioning of firearms either. People will gravitate towards the most cosmetic features of particular weapons (black plastic, rails, bayonet slugs, pistol-grips, etc.) and assume these distinctions make a particular difference regarding the deadliness of the weapon. Meanwhile most hunting rifles are functionally indistinguishable. And yet calls to bad guns with particular cosmetic features persist.

Many of these same people will point to magazine capacity as a point of contention - that there's no need for 30-round magazines for self-defense. Of course, this is a claim that is completely dependent on context. But, even if we granted the argument, I would ask what difference they think it would make going from, say, 30-round magazines to a maximum of 10 or 15. If most magazines were fixed, you could almost understand their belief in magazine-capacity as a limiting factor. But most magazines are not fixed. They are detachable. And quickly so. Going from 30 to 15-round capacity simply means that if I want to shoot 30 rounds, I'm going to use two 15-round magazines. Otherwise, functionally, there is little difference that I can see. Swapping a magazine, for any layman, can be done easily in under two seconds. THAT is the difference between a 30-round magazine and a 15-round magazine...a less-than-two-second window after the first fifteen shots. This isn't really prohibitive for the shooter, particularly if there are no armed civilians nearby. There is not some linear correlation between a weapon's killing capacity and it's magazine capacity. The capacity of the standard-issue magazine for the M-16 (an ACTUAL "assault rifle") is NOT one hundred rounds. I assure you, they are nonetheless deadlier.

This leads into another point of contention - this one surrounding terminology. In a lot of arguments, I think deferring to semantics can be a deflection. But, when it comes to this issue, I think the semantic errors really do serve to reinforce certain opinions about gun-control. One term that keeps being repeatedly brought up is "assault rifle." Based on the information I've seen so far, no assault rifles had been used to carry out this crime. And yet the terminology persists. When I hear the echo of, "There's no reason people should be able to own assault rifles!", I want to reply with, "Most Americans think that's a reasonable opinion and they overwhelmingly agree with you...which is why they've been banned for about eighty years now."

"Assault rifle" is a specific term reserved for weapons with a specific functional capability - namely the ability to easily switch between semi-automatic and full-automatic. "Assault rifle" does not mean "any weapon that looks menacing" or "any rifle that looks like an assault rifle." What people are wanting to refer to here is a newer, political, classification of weapons that are aesthetically "assault-rifle-like"...dubbed "assault weapon(s)". Of course, even linguistically, the term is a little silly given that the purpose of weapons, in general, is to "assault". I'm not aware of "non-assault" weapons. Anyways, the point here is that there is confusion over the functional capability of legal firearms under this second category, and incorrectly referencing them using the same terminology as a whole other caste of weapons does not improve our understanding of the situation or make clear what the proper response should be.

This leads into the more general point I want to make about the practical (short-term) problem I see. The solutions I've seen thrown up (that center around gun-control) don't make a lot of sense to me - even if I had no objection to restricting access to firearms on any level. There's nothing about more intense screenings and background checks, limiting magazine capacity, or banning particular aesthetics that would have seemed to make any difference at all in this case. And while I think a lot of people who support these kinds of things mean well, ultimately, I can't help but pour a little bit of derision over the mindset that would allow someone to think that effectively limiting us to "hunting rifles" would really curb incidents like this in any meaningful way. It's as if they believe that the firepower that could take down a buck works by some mystical properties that humans are immune to. I'm not a firearm expert, but I don't find this to be the case. You're not going to be able to de-couple the two without specific reference to function. And, at that point, we're talking about some fairly significant limitations that would need to be imposed (a ban on all non-fixed magazines, outlawing a surplus of more than 3-4 rounds per person, banning semi-automatic weapons altogether, etc.). Short of that, a lot of the suggestions wouldn't effectually amount to much.

Outside of all the specifics about various arguments being made, there's something that's been bothering me in a more general way. In the wake of this senseless act of violence, we feel compelled to demand a "solution." What a solution would be, in its make-up, is something of contention. But what it would mean seems largely agreed on - a cessation of this kind of violence. However, I'm not sure what we mean by "solution" is really as cut-and-dry as it seems. And I'm less certain that it's reasonably attainable. Let me break that down a little bit.

Almost everything we do has some cost associated with it. We balance our needs and wants against the costs and proceed with what seems most acceptable. Sometimes this is done intentionally at the individual level, intentionally at the collective level, or even unintentionally at the collective level through individual actions. But, regardless of their nature, there are trade offs we make for these choices. So, let's detach this from the issue of guns for a moment and ask ourselves, "On the spectrum of mortality, is there an acceptable number of innocent deaths in the cost of ANY of our freedoms?" And, please, don't give a knee-jerk reaction here. Really think about this. Take any of the freedoms we enjoy on a daily basis (explicit or otherwise) - If you knew that, statistically, having such freedoms would likely directly escalate the chance of death for innocent people, what would be the magic number that would be acceptable to you?

Is there such a number? I'm not sure there is. If there is one, we might guess that it would be attached directly to the importance of the thing we're paying the cost for though, right? How important is your right to self-defense? Would you rank that as being pretty important? I would. I think most other people would as well. So, how many deaths are "acceptable" within the confines of us retaining that right? Twenty? Twenty-thousand? Is the right to have a car and to drive to and from work more fundamental than the right to defend yourself? Most would say no, I'd assume. So, what is the magic number of deaths within the acceptable limit with regards to us having the right to drive cars? Do you know what that number is? I don't know what it is. But I do know it's more than 30,000 in the United States - because that's how many deaths we suffer from auto-accidents annually, and almost no one thinks we should ban cars.

Our want for the mere convenience (not need) of cars is so great that we're completely OK with having 30,000 human beings kick the bucket because of it every single year. The ratio of vehicular-deaths to gun-deaths in the United States is roughly 3:1. So why the clamor over firearms as opposed to trucks? Here's another sobering thought; if an event just like Friday's massacre happened twice a week for an entire year it still wouldn't come close to the death toll for the largest mass-murder in U.S. history - and that crime was carried out with box cutters. Do we need box cutters? No. Is there some other way we could use shipping boxes without having to use a device capable of cutting a person open? Probably. So why are we OK with it? Why is there no need for a box-cutter lobby?

The only thing I can surmise is that the people in the gun-control crowd see absolutely no use whatsoever in having a firearm. Or, at the very least, they see less usefulness in owning a firearm than owning a box cutter. If that really is the case, that's a hard one for me to chew. At the end of the day, the securing of any and all rights (no matter the conception) is dependent upon an agent's ability to compel others to obey said obligations. In that way, a meaningful right to self-defense is the presupposition of all other rights. It's arguably a constitutive component of the whole concept of rights to begin with. Now, the contours of those rights and their defense is always going to be a source of contention, I'm sure. But that a reasonably compelling (read: lethal) method for securing our individual rights be more important (even if less exercised) than our supposed "right" to box cutters, greasy hamburgers, and Toyota Camry's doesn't seem completely crazy to me. And yet, here we are.

In any case, I'm not trying to circle back around to make this a conversation about rights per se. But, rather, my point was simply to illustrate that there aren't many aspects of our lives that we couldn't make safer (in many cases, much, much safer) if we're willing to bear such opportunity costs. Milton Friedman, in a fairly famous exchange with a college student, brought up this very same idea - in a different context - which seemed to be met with bewilderment. We get a chance to act like purists when something that is bad and of prominence occurs. But it's rarely a question of whether one thing or another is acceptable or unacceptable - it's a question of where we put the goalposts. As Friedman pointed out, certainly Ford could have included the parts in question to make the vehicle safer. But you could continue the same logical argument indefinitely. They could have also added more insulating materials, airbags, driver's caging, and on and on and on creating a safer and more expensive vehicle with each pass until you've turned it into a tank no one could/would use. Each level of that would have a specific amount of risk associated with its hypothetical use. So what magical number of deaths are "OK"?

At the end of the day, I fear the drastic moves that might be made in terms of gun control because I think it belies any rational sense of equality and power enjoined upon the greatest minority - the individual. But I also fear the lesser (half-hearted) measures because I think some may unintentionally lead to worse results. I can't escape a conversation in the public sphere about this without being reminded that my current view is the craziest one - that there may simply be not much we can or should do about this politically. And, yet, that's how I feel. The "we gotta do something(!)" crowd is screaming pretty loud, and they seem content to throw about anything on the fire without checking to see if it's combustible first. So you'll have to pardon my lack of enthusiasm on this one. It looks like if you're not willing to push more God, guns, or government onto other people you've already lost your seat at this particular table.