The First Step to Reducing Mass Gun Violence

This may sound random but the first step that must be taken in order to reduce the kind of mass gun violence such the crime perpetrated  recently in Roseberg, Oregon, and the ongoing everyday slaughter of Americans by guns is an obvious step and yet it is a step almost no one ever suggests when asked about the problem.  The step is - Campaign Finance Reform.

Right now I am sure many readers are nodding in recognition of this simple, obvious and never spoken of truth!

There is no chance anything can change if lobbying efforts and campaign donations continue to influence elected officials one way or the other on the issue of gun control and any other issue where billions and billions of dollars are at stake.  Gun control is not even remotely the issue that is most influenced by donations and lobbying; health care has that distinction, followed by the military industrial complex, and competes with numerous other lobbies, including agriculture, banks, union activists, anti-union activists and, well just about everything that involves profits or paychecks.  If  you want to know why the obvious never gets done in the U.S. despite the overwhelming desire of a vast majority of Americans, the explanation starts with the way we finance political campaigns.

The things that need to be done are pretty obvious; eliminate all donations over a modest dollar amount that almost any American could afford to donate and yet would be too small by itself or in total to influence an elected official.  That could be as low as $100 for a Senator or House Representative.  If a  candidate obtains a threshold number of donations they then qualify for public financing that would dwarf what they could raise privately $100 at a time, and that is all the would be allowed to spend, period.

All other donations would be considered attempted bribes, which in reality, is exactly what they are.

Independent fundraising PACs may not be possible to eliminate BUT they should be held accountable for mis-information and can be sued as an institution and the suit should extend to donors as well if a Court finds that they lied or libeled a candidate or lied about an issue.  Currently, as far as I know, PACs can accept donations privately and tell any lie they choose with impunity and face no consequences, or at least they have faced no consequences so far.  Perhaps criminal liability for someone within a PAC who interfered with an election by promoting false information to the Public would do the trick.  The difference from the  average citizen who ignorantly spread lies is money - the PAC was paid to spread the lies, an average voter was just expressing an incorrect opinion. The difference is the monetary motive.

In any other business, if a product causes damage or is defective, the producer of the product is liable.  If the producer of the product knowingly sold a defective or dangerous product, the producer is criminally liable, or should be.  PACs should be treated no differently.

The next thing to do would be to institute term limits at every level of government, generally 8 years for executives, 12 years for legislators and 20 years for judges.

Then we can outlaw gerrymandering and, instead, with computers we can draw electoral districts objectively.

Finally we can stop trying to pass laws restricting voting rights aimed at the voters of the opposition party.

ONLY at that point can the intractable problems of gun violence, health care, the deficit and so on can even be thought about.  My proof is the current state of affairs.

Benghazi - What We Should Do About It

Benghazi - the "scandal" that won't go away or be explained in any way that makes sense.  Exactly what is being "covered up" and why was there a so-called "cover up"?

As far as I can tell, the "scandal" consists of the Obama Administration claiming through statements made by then UN representative Susan Rice shortly after the tragic events of September 11, 2012 in Benghazi, Libya, that the cause of the killing of our envoy and other US Embassy employees was possibly a spontaneous attack on the Embassy as a response to an inflammatory amateur video made in the US that questioned the Islamic religion.  The attack instead turned out to be a planned attack by a local Al Qaeda group that just happened to coincide with riots then taking place in other Islamic countries that were indeed in response to this film.

The scandalous story line asserts that the Administration made this false claim to deflect criticism that they should have supplied more security to the Embassy staff beforehand.  If the attack were spontaneous, such security needs could not have been anticipated but an Al Qaeda threat should have been anticipated.  Or so the story line goes.

Or perhaps the Administration made their claim to avoid some other line of criticism.  I really am not clear on  what advantage the Administration had to gain by offering a misleading explanation for the attack knowing that the actual truth would inevitably come out and fairly soon at that.  Indeed, it came out within the week and that should have been that. The original explanation could have been taken as a mistake.

If there was any scandal, it lay in the decision about security before the attack; this is a decision that should now be scrutinized fully, keeping in mind, however, that hindsight is 20-20.  But it does seem that a cover up would be pointless; there is no way that if this was an Al Qaeda related attack that the truth would never come out, nor does it seem possible that the Administration would be motivated to not let the blame fall on an Al Qaeda related group if that was where the blame should lay.

Whether this was a spontaneous attack inspired by religious fanaticism or a planned attack inspired by religious fanaticism, the attack was inspired by religious fanaticism.  Planned or spontaneous, who really cares?  What difference does it make?  It would seem that security would be a concern in any country that either harbors religiously fanatical regular people in the streets or religiously fanatical people in terrorist cells.

A constructive exploration of this tragedy would consist of a true examination of the role of religious extremism in the so-called "Arab Spring."  Can anything good come from any change in governments unless the resulting new regime is a secular, free democratic republic where the rights of the individual are protected fully or at least somewhat?   Is it really better to be governed by a democratically elected majority of religious fanatics as opposed to being ruled by a more secular dictator who did not oppress women and/or non-believers as much as the clerics or fanatics that would replace him?  The goal is individual freedom of which democracy is an indispensable aspect but not the sole factor.  This is the conversation that needs to be had.

Instead, all we have is politics.  I mean that in the worst way.

There is a way to address the poisonous political discourse.  It's called term limits.  If Congressional members did not have to constantly worry about raising money and getting re-elected, perhaps they might have time to consider the welfare of the citizens of the US.  As I've written before in this blog, Job One is re-gaining control of our democracy.  Campaign finance reform, an end to voter suppression, outlawing Gerrymandering, reforming the electoral college and term limits for all branches of government may not solve all our political problems, but it is a guarantee that they would be a great help.

The First Thing We Have to Do BEFORE We Solve Our Problems - Job One

It sure does seem that it is near impossible for our dear country, the US, to address and solve its many problems; the deficit, unemployment, immigration, gun violence, the cost of health care, and so on, seem unsolvable when politics enters the picture.  The gridlock is worse than ever and seems to get only worse with time.

How do we get out of this cycle of governing from crisis to crisis, most of our own making?  The central problem is the system; our broken down democracy is barely democratic anymore.  Laws end up not being made based on the well being of the citizenry.

Many elections are decided by the money one candidate or another can attract, usually by "selling" their legislative votes to the wealthiest special interest donors, such as health care businesses, defense contractors, unions and so on.  Other elections are basically rigged by gerrymandered electoral districts; the election is over after the primary votes are counted - the victimized political party has no chance in the general election because of the gerrymandering.  Voter suppression is even making a comeback, typically targeting certain classes of voters and the net result of all these undemocratic practices is dysfunction.  What a shock!

We will NOT solve our deficit problem when legislators are beholding to large donors who may have not care about what is best for the country but instead what is best for themselves and have a disproportionate share of the wealth with which to pursue their selfish interests.  Exactly how does one determine the point when a donation is no different than a bribe?
 
The solutions are simple and cheap.  There should be very low limits for campaign contributions, such as $100 or $200, depending on the level of the election, and it must apply to people and corporations.  Furthermore, if a candidate obtains a certain level of low donation support, they can qualify for public campaign financing, and be able to compete with the Romneys, Bloomburgs, Bushes, Obamas and Clintons of the world financially.

Furthermore, Political Action Committees must no longer have a free ride; if they cannot be constitutionally eradicated then they must be held accountable for falsehoods, frauds and outright lies told in order to affect elections via fines, lawsuits and prison.  It is outrageous that almost any amount can be raised, anything can then be said, affecting any election, all without the slightest consequence for the most blatant lies and misleading statements that, after all, could change our nation's history for the worse!  Yes we have free speech, but fraud and libel are illegal; why is fraudulent political speech by non-candidates an exception?

Gerrymandering must be outlawed; it truly is no problem to devise objective methods of creating voting districts.  Computers could do it without regard to ethnicity, political affiliation, age or anything other than population and geography.  What is the problem?;

The Electoral College?  It must be amended so that the President is elected by popular vote.  Politicians are currently plotting to institute different electoral college schemes in different states that would favor one party over the other.  How could subverting true democracy be good for us?  The President must be elected by popular vote.

Filibuster? It has devolved into the Senate needing 60% in favor in order to pass a law; this is nowhere in the Constitution.  It must be ended.

Finally, term limits must be instituted at all levels of government; 8 years for executives, 12 years for lawmakers and 20 years for judges.  Public office must return to being a service, not a career.

Until we create a system that is truly democratic and makes political office a service and not a job to be bought and sold, we will solve nothing.  It is Job One.