An Open Letter to Democrats

I admit I don't read the news much. I find that it isn't the best source to get information, particularly if you care more about your everyday life than about things you can't easily change. Nevertheless, it's virtually impossible not to at least see it, especially if you own a smartphone. In my case, it's the Galaxy S7, a fantastic device which allows me to read magazines about many of my interests, from computer hardware to the automotive industry. However, the app I use for this, Google Newstand, also frequently decides to show my news stories I don't care about, and the settings for changing that are minimal.

In this way, I found out today that the 2017 election results boiled down to two gubernatorial elections in which blue states elected Democrats. This isn't that surprising. What is surprising is the media reaction, which, time and time again stated that this was a huge upset and big setback for the current administration.

This, I think, is yet another symbol of a massive internal problem with the Democratic party and many of its constituents: they are deeply convinced that they always win and everyone likes them, and that if they don't, it's not their fault.

Let's get a few things straightened out here. Two states which habitually vote blue in national elections electing Democrats isn't particularly meaningful, and it's not a setback to Donald Trump; he lost both states in the election. Those states always go blue, and will, in all probability, will next time too, no matter what party their governor is. Trump won because he pulled in states like Florida, Ohio, and my home state, Pennsylvania, which hasn't gone red since 1988. 

Electing a couple of Democrats is a win for the DNC on paper, but what does it get them in regards to Donald Trump exactly, and how is this a setback for him? The WORST that can happen is he loses these states in 2020 - like he did in 2016. They don't actually matter to him because he doesn't need them to win again.

I'm not trying to be political here, by the way. This is just the strategic reality. It's nice these guys won, if you're a Democrat living in those states, but it doesn't really have much bearing on Trump, nor will it have much bearing on national politics. If you live in VA or NJ, this will affect you. If you don't, it probably won't.

So why is the media trumpeting this as a big win for the DNC? One answer is, of course, to sell copy. News outlets primarily exist to help people with their confirmation biases. Just look at the popularity of Fox News, which is hilariously partisan and terrible, but also massively popular. People want to hear what they want to hear. And that's fine if your job is to make money by providing information people want, even if it's not the whole story. The problem comes when people start buying into that information because it makes them feel good.

Let's get some uncomfortable truths out of the way right now: you didn't lose this election because of Russia, fake news, or because everyone is an idiot or a racist. You lost because you ran an unpopular candidate whose campaign was horribly mismanaged. The Clinton campaign ignored crucial pockets of the voting population that the Trump campaign brilliantly picked up and convinced to vote red, which swung states like PA in their favor. You can espouse environmentalism, which I believe to be a worthy cause, without literally telling coal miners (who vote) that you are going to put them out of business. You can espouse social justice (another fundamentally valid cause) without calling every single person you disagree with a racist. 

The Clinton campaign didn't. They alienated a lot of people. They lost.

What I'm trying to say is that you didn't lose because the Russians hacked you. You lost because you suck at politics.

This is FANTASTIC news.

See, if you REALLY lost because of the Russians, Fake News, or because people are secret racists, you can't do much about it. How will you stop the Russians from hacking the next election? How are you going to stop people from distributing fake news? How will you change the mind of a racist (and I know from personal experience that this is basically impossible)? Ultimately, these sorts of things are largely outside your control. But your strategy, and this is the real reason you lost, isn't outside your control. I believe that the Democrats can, and might, do very well in the 2018 elections, but to do so, they have to change - and fast.

Step one is to take a good, long, and HONEST look at your party. Stop pretending that everyone loves you and that, in a fair contest, you'll always win. A lot of people do NOT love you. (And before you bring up the popular vote, lots of people in California loving you doesn't count because you're always going to win that state anyway.) You do NOT always win. And by pretending that two state gubernatorial elections are massive victories, you are committing the same mistake you did in 2016. Hillary was a sure thing, remember? Major news outlets gave her a 99% chance of winning. The polls had her up by 6% or more. So what incentive did Democrats have to vote? They were going to win, and win big. If you didn't feel like getting up that morning, what incentive were you given to do so?

You should have waken up, both metaphorically and literally. But at least then, you had an excuse. Now, you don't. Stop pretending. You're not winners and you're not popular. You need to change that, not double down on trumpeting in the media that you're popular and that if you don't win it's only because of the Russians or the racists.

Here's a few ways you can do that.

One, stop alienating voters. A significant number of people voted for Donald Trump. Not all of them were Republicans, because the numbers don't add up. So this is something you have to deal with: centrists found his campaign more compelling than yours. When you demonize Trump voters, when you tell them the person you voted for is a moron, a racist, a tyrant, whatever, and that he was only voted in because of racists like them, what exactly do you think your chances are of winning their vote in the future? In my experience, very few people are actually racists, and unless they are, calling them racists is a surefire way to get them to strongly dislike you.

This brings me to suggestion number two: have a message. Right now, the Democratic message is, essentially, fuck Donald Trump. And while that's probably popular enough, it's not convincing enough. Lots of people who voted Trump didn't actually LIKE Trump, but they loved his message, which was, under all the rhetoric and reality-show clown tactics, basically that America is good, but there were things that needed fixing, and we, as Americans, were going to make it great again. Hillary's message was the exact opposite: that America was a terrible backward country full of racists. Doom and gloom pervaded her campaign. If there's one thing you don't ever do in politics, no matter who you are or which side you're on, it's tell voters that America sucks. This is basic stuff, guys and girls. Americans, by and large, love their country. Say what you will about Bernie, who I didn't even like, but his message was way more compelling because it was essentially positive and uplifting. 

As an aside, you really should have run him. He wouldn't have won, in my view, but it would have been a lot better than it was.

These are your two biggest problems: you are alienating the voters and you have no message. You could do really well as a party by addressing these yesterday. But there are some smaller things I think might help you out too. For one, drop gun control. I don't care what YOU personally think of guns. It is a well known fact that gun control is poison to US political campaigns. Over a third of Americans own guns, and far fewer than a third of Americans want increased restrictions on them. Gun sales are hitting record highs, as are applications for concealed carry permits. If this doesn't convince you, also consider that gun culture is ingrained in the American mind, the NRA is one of the strongest and most effective lobbying groups that exists in American politics, and that gun violence is declining and has been for decades. Sure, you see high profile mass shootings in the news frequently, but statistically, fewer and fewer people die from guns every year and gun ownership becomes more popular. You don't have to like it, but it's the trend. The more you harp on this, the more people you are going to scare off. Politicians espouse gun control because it brings in big money from high profile billionaires like Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg, and George Soros, but is the money worth the loses? Only you can answer that, but uinless you live in MA, NJ, CT, NY, or CA, don't make this a big part of your campaign unless it's REALLY a big issue for you, in which case proceed at your own risk.

That's not to say you don't have some great issues at your disposal. Environmentalism is increasingly popular, and not just with Democrats. I would argue that most centrists and even a fair amount of Republicans see the value of environmental conservation. There is no stronger message than let's save the planet, and even hardcore GOP members can't possibly be blind to the value of electric cars and alternative energy, even if they have to pretend they are for their more recalcitrant constituents. Remember how I just told you that gun control was a pet issue you need to drop because it's killing you politically? I firmly believe that the GOP needs to do the same with their insistence that climate change does not exist. In the same way that Democrats are reluctant to drop gun control because there's money in it, Republicans are loath to drop this issue because there's money in it from oil and gas. But they should drop it, because it doesn't play well with the public, and having a lot of money in your war chest doesn't seem valuable if you don't win because of it. Environmentalism is only going to get more popular as resources diminish. Throw in the fact that going green can easily save you money, and you have a winner with the voters here.

That's it really. Take some responsibility as a party. Stop blaming others for your faults. Stop alienating voters by calling them racists and threatening to curtail their right to defend themselves and their families. Focus on things voters want, like sustainability. I've really only mentioned two issues here, so start thinking of others. Where are you losing voters? Where are you doing well? I'm no political advisor, but I feel like minimizing the former and focusing on the latter can't hurt. And above all, have a message other than "we're not the opposition and the opposition is bad." A lot of people know the Republicans are bad, but they've given us a reason to vote for them. Don't tell me why I shouldn't vote for THEM. Tell me why I SHOULD vote for YOU.

Or keep pretending everything's peachy - and keep losing. Your choice.

I know no one inside the DNC is really going to read this, but a few of my friends who are interested in politics might. A lot of my friends lean left. Realistically, it's up to them to put pressure on their party here. As a middle-class gun owner with investments, in the current political and economic climate I don't have a reason to care much about the state of things. If you do, lean on your reps to make things better by actually being effective. I'd love to see the Democrats put up a good fight and I'd even like to see them win if they become a party that cares again and is willing to take the effort.

Hell, if they did that, I might even vote for them. Stranger things have happened.

The New(tered) Left

WHOOSH!

That, I imagine, was the sound of the point passing swiftly above the head of whoever made the response to this meme.

See, hard as this may be to believe, not everything is about "gender roles" or "muh patriarchy." Some things might be about, oh, I don't know, the appropriation of a rural identifier commonly worn by backwoods working class men by an urban elite which does not understand the significance of said identifier, but seeks to emulate it so as to remove the power of it as a symbol from that class.

Now if you're not familier with this concept, it's probably because you didn't read a lot of Marxist history, which primarily deals, as you might expect, with class struggle, power relationships between classes, and, yes, gender and race. You don't have to be a socialist to be a Marxist historian - I consider myself one, and I am a libertarian - but you do have to understand that gender, race, and class, the big three themes of this style of history, are important and relevant.

That being the case, you'd think the left (and most Marxist theorists are leftists; paging Mr. Foner) would LOVE a meme that calls out the hypocrisy and cultural appropriation that hipsters commit. But the new left didn't. They made it about literal beards. Because that's what they do.

See, this meme isn't REALLY about beards. It's not. It's about self-sufficiency as a way of life disappearing and being replaced by helpless urbanites who ACT like they know more than you, but don't. It's why your average hipster will turn his nose up at Coors Light but not know how to brew, wheras a real beer enthusiast will drink any beer, even a bad one, and be conversant in it, because he knows that different people like different things, and Coors, although not a great tasting or complex product, fufills the role of a cheap beer for people who like beer but don't want to pay a lot for it. It's a utilitarian beer. It works well for what it is. Do I like it? No, not especially. Do I think it's good? Nah. Will I drink it? Sure. I like beer. I'll try any beer. And I know enough about beer to understand why Coors exists. I don't NEED to turn my nose up at it.

Hipsters do, because they don't know anything about beer or brewing. Their modus operandi is essentially to look informed without BEING informed. If you grew up, as some people did, in a rural area, where you learned to DO things, and self sufficiency is a part of your identity as a rural person, someone who clearly DOESN'T know how to do things but acts like they do will piss you off. That's what this meme is about. Women can be, and are, self sufficient too, and they should be. Everyone should be. It's not about beards.

And there's the history to consider, too. Self-sufficiency is historically something Americans pride themselves on. The backwoods settler is integral to the American way of life and our national mythos. Take hipsters on booze again: specifically rum. I'm a huge fan of rum. Yes, I like the taste, but I also like the image. When a hipster sips a craft rum and feels superior and enlightened for doing it, because it's a CRAFT rum, he forgets that rum is the drink of pirates, sailors, smugglers, and outlaws. It's a drink for the common man of the Western Hemisphere, a robust drink for a robust man (or yes, woman) and a symbol not of civilization and the intelligentsia, but of its antipode: of being wild and independent, and making your own rules while disregarding those set by others. One of our founding fathers was a rum smuggler, for fuck's sake.

Don't get me wrong, I love craft rum. But again, this isn't about rum. Or beards. It's about an aesthetic and a way of life being appropriated by an element of society which, fundamentally, does not understand that aesthetic. Again, you would expect the left to be all over this. The left used to stand, after all, for the common man. But now, and this, I think is the problem, they don't really stand for anything.

It's a fine thing to have a tolerant society. The left's problem these days isn't that they're too tolerant. It's that they're trying too hard. Most people, myself included, are super ok with gays and transgenders, and we absolutely think women should have an equal say in society. These are just accepted values now. That's good. But it seems as though it's left the, well, left, with nowhere to go, and in an attempt to find their next great crusade, they've crossed a line into insanity.

You can't say being fat is unhealthy, or else you're "body shaming," despite the fact that being fat is unhealthy. You can't say you're proud of your body if you work out and eat right, because that was "just your genetics" and the work you put into maintaining your health is "privilege." (More sinister is the fact that if someone who is overweight is trying to fix it, you aren't allowed to be proud of them or encourage them or support them in it, for the same stated reasons.)

You can't like guns now or you're sexist and conservative and playing into male gender norms, despite the fact that women are the fastest growing demographic among gun owners and CCW holders and that feminism dictates that women be capable of defending themselves and their rights and that leftists and women have been arming themselves with firearms for centuries to fight oppression.

You can't share your opinions anymore if it might make someone uncomfortable, because that's invading their "safe space" and "triggering" them, despite the fact that exposure to multiple viewpoints and analysis of those viewpoints is the cornerstone of academia and, in fact, academia cannot continue without it.

You can't be head of a college anymore because someone drew a swastika out of poop on a bathroom wall.

Guys, come on. Can we just come out and say it? This is fucking stupid.

People wonder how people can get behind Donald Trump. Hell, I wonder that every day. But at the same time, if what you've offered them instead is an intellectual cage, it probably feels GOOD to say something and not have people call you racist. And from there, you might move on to saying ACTUALLY racist things. To paraphrase another meme: when everything is racist, nothing is.

The right has its own problems, and it could be the subject for an entire book let alone a simple blog post. But the left's primary and glaring problem is a distinct lack of the willingness to THINK. They are playing with ideas that they are not equipped to understand. Race, gender, identity, and class are major themes and subjects and they REQUIRE thought. They require discussion. If you disagree with something, you have to articulate why. You can't just throw around terms like "antiquated gender norms" and think you're qualified to discuss these things now, because what you actually mean is "beards as a symbol of masculinity and the pairing of them with self sufficiency implies that self sufficiency is a uniquely male trait, and is therefore sexist, since women can also be self sufficient." That's a REAL ARGUMENT and required you to think about WHY you thought the original meme was sexist. And that's what parsing political issues requires: thought.

The problem is that part of that thought requires you to understand issues like race, gender, class, and identity further than simply crying sexism or racism everywhere. You may be right. The picture may be sexist. But now that you know WHY it's sexist, you also have to look deeper into why it got posted in the first place, and now you're looking at a discussion about cultural appropriation and class conflict and oh my, wouldn't it just be easier to post a meme and say I "fixed" it so I can get a thousand likes and feel good about myself without putting 6 years into it?

It would be easier, but it wouldn't be helpful. Not if your goal is to actually fix the very real problems we as a country face.

Firearms by the Numbers

It's time to talk about this. If the New York Times thinks it's important enough to warrant a front-page editorial, I think it's important enough to discuss too. That's about the only thing I think the New York Times and I will ever agree on where guns are concerned.

The difference, however, between myself and NYT is that my argument, as I detail it below, is not based on hyperbole, emotion, fear, or the desire to sell copy. In fact, it isn't very stirring at all, because it's based on numbers.

It is not within the scope of this post to talk about why the NYT article advocating gun control is rather poorly written, but it is within the scope, I believe, to note that it does not seek to put forth a particularly compelling argument based on the facts. It is, for the most part, an emotional appeal. What facts it does put forth are largely and objectively false. For example, according to the Times, the weapons used in the San Bernardino shooting were "lightly modified combat rifles." This is, strictly speaking, untrue. In fact, the rifles began life as California compliant semiautomatic AR-15s. California has some of the strictest restrictions on firearms in the country. It does not sell combat rifles. If what the NYT says is true, either the weapons were not "lightly" modified or California allows the sale of combat rifles.

This is but one example. It is not the one I wish to address. What I would like to address is the title, which indicates that gun violence in America is "epidemic."

This is a common claim by advocates of gun control: that gun violence is common in the United States, especially compared to the rest of the world. In fact, the biggest, and in fact, most effective argument for gun control is that gun violence is significantly higher in the United States than in other comparable countries. However, this argument, the single most compelling one, is significantly flawed.

First, let's examine the claim that gun violence is common in America, and let's do it numerically. We can do this by referencing the CDC's latest available data on gun deaths: that from the year 2013.

Let's get this out of the way now to avoid claims of cherry-picking: this data is reasonably representative (and you are welcome to fact-check that yourself using the back data from the CDC and other sources) and gun control advocates often make the claim that gun violence is on the rise, so picking the latest available data should actually give them an advantage here if that claim is accurate.

These are the facts: in 2013, there were 2,596,993 deaths in the United States. Of these, 33,636 were caused by firearms.

Let's get the first equation out of the way. These numbers mean that, out of all the deaths in America in 2013, guns caused 1.3% of them. (Actually people with guns caused them, but for the sake of brevity, I have chosen different wording. Anywhere this wording is present, it is implied that the guns themselves are not literally responsible.) For comparison, you were slightly more likely in 2013 to be killed by "nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis." You were 1.7 times as likely to die of pneumonia or influenza. You were most likely, in fact, to be killed by cancer (17 times more likely than being shot) or heart disease (18 times more likely). In fact, suicide and murder are not in the top ten causes of death in the United States, and that includes all types of suicide and murder, not just those committed with a firearm.

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/injury.htm
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/dvs/LCWK9_2013.pdf

Viewed in this context, it is difficult to see gun deaths, whether suicide or murder, as particularly common by any definition. It becomes increasingly difficult to justify gun control on the grounds of mass safety when you begin to look at what kind of weapons gun control is primarily concerned with: so-called "assault weapons."

Before we delve deeper into the numbers, let's clear up what an assault weapon is: a legal term and a legal term only. An assault weapon is generally defined by largely ergonomic features, such as grips or stocks, and by appearance. These do not change how the weapon's operating system functions.

The closest equivalent in a technical sense is a semi-automatic rifle, a commonly held civilian weapon which fires one bullet every time the trigger is pressed. I was unable to find a good source for cyclic rate of semiautomatic fire, so here is a video of a man intentionally firing 100 rounds as fast as possible from a 100-round magazine:

Now feel free to check me on this, but I calculated that at approximately 240 rounds per minute (RPM). To account for variability, let's settle on 300 RPM. Keep this number in mind, because it is important.

Please also note that you would not be as likely to hit your target at that rate of fire. Even automatic weapons are generally fired in bursts to achieve any degree of accuracy. The reasons for this have to do with shooting technique and recoil and I would be happy to discuss them with anyone reading this, but they fall largely outside the scope of this post. Suffice to say, 300 RPM is not a particularly effective fire rate for a semi-automatic rifle.

Now that we've found the closest mechanical equivalent in firearm parlance to an "assault weapon" (which again does not exist in a technical sense), let's look at the closest linguistic equivalent: assault rifle. An assault rifle is a rifle firing an intermediate cartridge and is capable of select-fire (automatic or burst) capability. This simply means that the gun will fire multiple rounds when the trigger is pressed once. Assault rifles generally fire around 700 to 800 rounds per minute.

Most modern assault rifles fire a cartridge known as 5.56x45 mm NATO. The civilian version which is so close as to make no difference and actually mildly less powerful, is called .223 Remington. These are effectively the same round. What seperates a civilian semiautomatic rifle like the AR-15 from a military assault rifle like the M16A4 or M4A1 is the ability to fire in fully automatic or burst mode.

As you can see, a semiautomatic rifle is very different and far less effective in combat than an assault rifle. The fact is that while assault rifles are legal for civilian ownership, they are heavily regulated, extremely rare and prohibitively expensive. Most of the time when you hear about an assault weapon, you are hearing about the AR-15 rifle, a semiautomatic weapon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault_rifle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Assault_Weapons_Ban
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AR-15
https://www.atf.gov/rules-and-regulations/national-firearms-act

If you are still confused, here is a good summary: http://www.assaultweapon.info.

The reason this absolutely matters is because the term assault weapon largely applies not only to rifles, but to a very specific subset of rifles: those having ergonomic features which mimic military service rifles. Back to the numbers: in 2013, 285 people were killed with rifles.

The report I got that information from does not mention what kind of rifles these were, so it's likely not all of them were even assault weapons. Gun control which seeks to ban assault weapons, and this is the most common and high profile type of gun control, is targeting a weapon which is used in AT MOST 3.3% of firearms murders.

https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/tables/table-20/table_20_murder_by_state_types_of_weapons_2013.xls

You may note that 285 is not 3.3% of total gun deaths. In fact, in the United States in 2013, there were 8,454 murders with firearms which means that only a quarter of firearms deaths were, in fact, murders. The other 75% are suicides, and that's important because another argument for the gun control lobby is that more guns leads to more suicide.

In this, the gun lobby may have a point. After all the United States does, as gun control activists claim, have a higher rate of suicide than some comparable countries. It also has a higher homicide rate than some comparable countries. But is that difference statistically significant?

If, as those seeking tighter restrictions on firearms claim, guns are the sole cause of this, one would expect there to be a proportional increase in gun ownership with suicide and homicide rates. Again, let's take a look at the numbers.

The homicide rate per 100,000 people in America is 3.8. The amount for gun ownership in the United States is 112 out of 100. Let's compare that to countries with lower rates of gun ownership, which are also comparable economically and culturally to the United States, specifically one gun control advocates like to use and their best example by far: Australia.

Australia has 21.7 guns per 100 people and a homicide rate of 1.1 per 100,000. On the surface, this is pretty solid evidence that gun control works. However, things get a bit more hazy when you look at another country with low gun ownership and strict gun control: Brazil. Brazil has 8 guns per 100 people. Fewer even than Australia. The homicide rate there is 25.2 per 100,000. This is why you don't hear gun control advocates talking about Brazilian gun control very much, even though it is extremely strict.

Of course you might argue that the reason for this is that Brazil is more unstable than Australia, and that's exactly the point. It is extremely unlikely that one single factor (i.e. gun ownership) would be the sole cause of higher homicide rates. This being admitted, it's hard to claim, as many do, that restrictions on gun ownership a la Australia or Brazil, would significantly reduce homicides.

A simple fact to put this all in perspective: America has the most guns per 100 people in the world and almost twice the guns per 100 people than the next country (Serbia). In fact, America has more guns than people. Yet we rank 121 (out of 218) countries in homicide. If guns are the primary cause, or even related in a major way, we should be be experiencing the homicide rates of Hondouras or Venezuala, at 90 or 53 homicides per 100,000 people (and rates of 6.2 guns per 100 persons and 10.7 guns per 100 persons) respectively.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country

This is the primary reason you will often hear gun control advocates talking about America's higher rate of GUN violence rather than homicide or other type of violence. With more guns we certainly have more GUN violence. But you're not very likely to be killed in America, and your odds of being killed with a gun in your entire lifetime are about 1% according to the CDC data cited earlier.

Of course, as noted earlier, a lot of these deaths are suicides. So let's look at those rates too. The suicide rate in America is 12.1 suicides per 100,000 people. We rank 50th in the world. The highest rates of suicide are in Guyana (44.2 suicides per 100,000 people with 14.6 guns per 100 persons) and South Korea (28.9 suicides per 100,000 people yet 1.1 guns per 100 persons).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate

No matter how you look at it, the only real conclusions you can draw, by the numbers, are that GUN RELATED homicides and suicides are higher in America than in other countries, NOT that homicides and suicides are proportional to gun ownership. This latter assumption, which the numbers do not support, is the lynchpin of the most common and convincing gun control argument.

There are, of course, other arguments for gun control, and I'd be happy to take them up elsewhere and at another time, but I think it's important to examine the actual statistics here, because there is a sense in America that our unusually (and it is significantly higher than in any other nation) high rate of gun ownership leads to an unusually high level of deaths, and it simply does not seem to be the case as far as I've been able to tell from running the numbers. I'm not a statistician, but you're free to look over the same numbers and check my math.

Of course, I only used one year here, but the general trend of homicide has been declining for many years, while gun sales continue to break records. I found it difficult to track suicide rates but the long term trend appears to be downward albeit with a few spikes recently. If you would like to look over the available data and calculate gun ownership compared to homicide or suicide, you are more than welcome to do so and prove me wrong, but having looked over it, I feel that using the most current data is not only the most relevant course of action, but is in fact consistent with earlier years. If anything, it seems like 2015 will suffer far far fewer gun deaths despite huge gun sales.

http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm
http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm
http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/
http://time.com/4138559/gun-sales-san-bernardino-mass-shooting/

By the numbers then, there simply seems to be little statistical merit to the idea that gun violence in the United States is "epidemic" or that our death rates are definitely connected to our rate of gun ownership. As with most problems, those of the United States do not stem from one source and cannot be solved or mitigated simply by changing one or two factors. Death and violence in America, as everywhere, are complicated issues, and require complicated solutions, not simply restrictions on civilian firearms ownership.

I could go into why it SEEMS like there is a gun violence epidemic in America, but that would require a discussion of race (we only care when white suburbanites die), culture, the media, and other aspects which are beyond the scope of this post. I believe I have delved into this subject to a far greater extent that most people with whom I converse on it, whose opinions seem to stem from anti-gun lobby groups or the media, rather than CDC, FBI, or verifiable and cited tables on Wikipedia, which is by no means the unreliable database it once was. As I've stated numerous times, feel free to check the numbers yourself. They will tell you what you need to know.

To summarize: if we take 2013 as a relevant example, firearm deaths constitute 1.3% of deaths in the United States each year. 75% of these are suicides. Only .00016% of the population total is killed with guns each year and if the sources I've used here are to be believed, that number will be half that this year if rates remain steady, despite record gun sales. The United States has the highest rate of gun ownership but falls largely into the middle of rankings of every country by murder and suicide rate, slotting both below and above countries which have stricter, even extremely strict, gun control. Of murders committed with guns in the United States in 2013, 3.3% were committed with any type of rifle. The amount of these which were "assault weapons" is unknown.

In short, and this is, frankly, the bottom line borne out by the evidence, there is no "epidemic" of gun violence caused by assault weapons. It simply does not exist.

Entitlement

There's no getting around the fact that I'm an adult now. No matter how many hours I blow in Fallout 4 (11 so far in three days with no signs of slowing) or how many weekends end in hangovers, I'm not a kid anymore. This is evidenced well by the fact that today, I'm going to discuss 'the kids these days.'

I don't really want to, but two events recently have pushed me to take a good hard look at today's college-aged youth because, in another old man cliche, I don't remember things being like this when I was in college.

What are the events? Those surrounding the Halloween debacle in California and Yale as well as the protests in Missouri over questionable circumstances, and the "Million Student March," both of which are, to be blunt, fucked up, and both of which stem from the same root: entitlement.

There have always been entitled people. That's the way of the world. There are always going to be people like that: arrogant in a way which expects people to take care of them - because if people ever stopped taking care of them, they would be totally helpless. It's one way to get by I suppose. We've all been in situations where we've felt helpless. For some people, it's an opportunity to develop the skills needed to overcome that. But for others, including a large number of college students today, it would seem, it's an opportunity to whine about it and bully people into getting what you want.

Let's start with that, because it's deeply ironic. Bullying is a form of weakness. If you're resorting to it, you're depending on your victim to help you out rather than on yourself and your skills. That makes you the loser in that situation. That's not the irony. I just wanted to make that clear. The irony is that anti-bullying is cited as one of the reasons why the biggest bullies of our generation, social justice warriors, bully other people.

Let's be clear here: we have a race problem in this country. We do. Minorities get the shit end of the stick statistically speaking. I know a little bit about this, and when I say a little bit, I mean more than most people. Sorry, but it's true and I have two degrees to back it up. In order to solve this race problem, we need, above all else, to talk about it. A lot.

So what's the problem? Well, we can't. Because it might "trigger" someone. Never mind that soldiers are coming back from an endless war with actual PTSD. According to SJWs, we should be more worried about offending an overweight person by talking about how we "privileged" skinny people work our asses off in a most literal way. What's the problem? Well, we don't just have a race problem, but also an obesity problem, and we can't solve that by telling people that being obese is ok. In a similar fashion, we cannot address race if we are unwilling to talk about it. It may "trigger" a minority to talk about race (although in 25 years I have never known that to be the case), but you can't fix something if you don't look at it. If you talk about race, someone might say something racist.

Fucking LET THEM.

Yes, let them. Of course it's offensive. It's a mark of progress that the word nigger is offensive. It means that we have advanced to a degree where we have largely said, "hey, being derogatory to black people isn't cool." So that's great. Now let's talk about it. Let's talk about the word nigger, why we don't use it anymore, and what to do about the fact that even though we don't, black people still face many many issues that white people simply never know about. Guess what? Someone might say something racist during that too, and that will give you a starting point. If you don't allow a person to say something offensive, you will never know they were harboring that thought and you're not going to be able to find out why they're racist and convince them of it.

But instead of talking about race and being honest with each other and trying to understand each other better as humans, we avoid anything controversial because someone's feelings might get hurt. How can that possibly be productive? Academia is about free thought, not conforming to a set of societal standards the mob sets.

Let me tell you something about history: nothing gets solved without someone being unhappy about it. Progress doesn't happen without discomfort. You can't face big issues without some mental stress. That's life. That's how things work. You are going to be offended at some point in your life. And sometimes you'll grow from it. I'm not saying that a black person being called a slur is good for them or anything like that. Really, I'm not. What I'm saying is that a middle-class white student would benefit from hearing something offensive because it might wake them up to the reality that this stuff is nasty and it exists out there, outside of their little bubble. And they they're more likely to do something about it. When there's a problem in the world, whether it's race in America or a leaky sink, you don't refuse to talk about it because you don't like it. You fucking fix it.

The problem today is that college aged students don't seem to want to fix anything, including their own problems. Let me tell you a little story. I went to college. Then I went to grad school. Then I incurred approximately a BMW M4's worth of debt and now I'm paying hundreds a month to pay it back. Not once, not one fucking time, did I think anyone but me was responsible for that debt. I agreed to the loan and I'm going to pay it. I don't harbor any ill will towards my loan servicer or the people I'm paying because I considered my education worthwhile and I was willing to make financial sacrifices to pay for it. I don't expect someone to hand me anything to cover it. Ever. Someone did hand me a LOT. Without him, and other members of my family, I'd have even MORE debt, and I'm eternally grateful to him and everyone who's ever given me anything. But I never asked for anyone to pay my loans. Not once.

So what the fuck is with the "Million Student March?"

It's not good enough that you're "entitled" to not be offended, but you have to make others pay for it while you get drunk at a frat and terrorize your professors if they say something you disagree with? I've seen some spoiled kids in my day, but that's too much.

Let's get something straight. If you're one of those people who thinks like that, you can talk about equality and social justice all you want, but at the end of the day, what you want is to have an education, medical care, and more money, but you don't want to pay for or earn it. You want to take it from other people. That's what you're advocating. You're entitled and it doesn't make you a social justice "warrior." It makes you an asshole. You're not a warrior. You're a brat.

If you're one of these people, you need to get something through your head: this world owes you exactly nothing.

Is that harsh? Follow up: does it matter? It's the way things are. The nature of physical reality is that if you are alone in the woods and you don't find a way to solve your problem real fast, you die. Nature doesn't care. Are you a good person? Hope you know how to light a fire, because if not, you're dead. Did you give to charity? Who gives a shit? Better learn how to fish or forage, because otherwise you're dead. Did you post on Tumblr that you think body shaming is bad? That's nice. Might want to find shelter or you're dead.

That's the zero sum reality of the world. You can argue that we're not in nature anymore, and that's true, but the basic principle applies here and universally: if you can't solve your own issues and use what's around you to do it, that doesn't mean anyone has a responsibility to save you. If you want something, you either work or you give someone something in return. Want to survive a cold night in the woods? Learn to build a fire. Want to go to college? Pay for it.

The point I'm trying to make here is that the problem starts when you feel you're owed something. You're not. You never will be.

Is that a pessimistic view of the world? I don't think so. Accomplishing goals is the best feeling on Earth. A child who has been spoiled and coddled, or expects to be, is being robbed of the best thing in life: achievement. Getting a free education that you bullied your way through won't feel good. It won't teach you anything. It won't help you. You're still helpless. And now you lack the skills and experience to help yourself.

I expect these kids will grow up, but I hope they do it soon because this is a problem. It is stunting societal growth in every conceivable way. Those who argue for free education and then negate their education by forcing their professors, who are experts in their field, to teach according to guidelines formulated on Reddit or Tumblr, are asking others to squander their money. In the end, the result can only be an undereducated public and a drain of wealth to that public. I may be old, but I don't want any kids educated by that process on my lawn. 

Do you?

Facelessbook

Due to one friend and several coworkers advising that I watch a show on USA Network called "Mr. Robot," I've taken them up on the advice and watched the first three episodes. It's got a lot of problems. The negative approach to banks and money is the same tired and failed populism that's been going on since the rise of Marxism and has been recently resurrected for the millionth time and portrayed as new by, ironically enough, and old white male candidate for president who has about as much of a chance of being president as Ron Paul did in 2008. Additionally, its portrayal of the impossibility of escape from depression and social anxiety is discouraging. However, there are a lot of things to like about the show, including this scene, which has become one of my favorite moments of television or film pretty much instantly.

This scene addresses a lot of things in just over a minute, but it addresses them well. One facet of this rant I've been struggling with lately is Facebook. There's no way around it. Facebook is terrible.

I keep going on Facebook even though I hate it. A lot. Posts on Facebook fall into three basic categories: people portraying their lives as perfect, monetized articles (i.e. Buzzfeed, Salon, Upworthy, if that's still a thing, you get the picture), and, really a subcategory of the type I've just mentioned: political articles which become more extreme every day so you'll generate clicks for the people writing them. And I don't want to see any of it.

It's obvious why I don't want to see the Buzzfeed or political stuff. First of all, you aren't doing anything when you share a link to that crap that other than generating revenue for the site that posted it. You're not changing the world or helping those in need. You are earning money for people who design websites to generate the most clicks. And they are not paying you to do it. You are working for them and you are not being paid. It's that simple. They don't care about you. They don't care about "social justice" or the events happening in our country. They don't care about anything other than cash, and you're helping them out every time you share a link with an outrageous title designed to get people to click on it. So stop doing it. If you're going to post something political, use your damn words. Think for yourself and post it. As an example, and one that's apropos right now, if you want to talk about gun violence in this country, don't post a skewed graph from CNN. Think about the issue and actually say something about it. While I'm on the subject, if you DO agree with the political confrontations of that graph, let me extend a hearty fuck you to you and everyone who trashes me and my hobbies. I'm not a terrorist.

Which gets me to my second point: we are VERY confrontational on the Internet, particularly Facebook. I'm part of this problem in a big way. We enjoy getting angry, which is why we post things we KNOW people will disagree with. It's the same reason we also post things we know people will NOT disagree with: we want attention. We want to sound like we're saying something, and we want our lives to matter.

Only here's the problem: nothing on Facebook matters, and I think we all know that. Again, what people post that's original, and that's pretty rare these days, falls into two categories: trite and confrontational. Most of my bullshit is the latter, but I see a lot of the former too. This isn't about anyone in particular, and I'm sorry if one of these examples fits your description but frankly I don't CARE that you were at Disneyworld because Disney is trite and you're an adult who should have outgrown it. Same reason I don't care about whatever you have to say about Harry Potter. That's a children's series. You're in your mid-twenties. Grow up. I also don't care about your selfies. I don't care about your dining experiences. I don't care about the sports you watch.

Before you get too pissed, let me be the first to say that I imagine you don't care about my stuff either. Why would you? You really care what I have to say on Facebook about gaming, cars, shooting, politics, anything? Of course not. You shouldn't.

This isn't to say your life or my life or anyone's life is pointless, because it isn't. I've got some of the best friends in the friend-having business, and they put up with my bullshit pretty well in real life. But that's the key: in real life. What Facebook does is offers us the chance to portray ourselves in two ways: people who are so happy that they spend their time taking pictures of their meals or people who act edgy even though they aren't. That's what Facebook does. It allows you to pretend you're someone other than the very nuanced person you actually are. It allows you to design yourself. But you can't do that. Because you have flaws. And the problem is that we KNOW we have flaws. We don't believe the image we've created for ourselves because we're aware that we're lying. We do believe the images other people have created, though. I read recently that smartphones can worsen depression. Big surprise there. We spend all day looking at people's lives and they seem happy or important and we feel, in comparison, malcontent and small. Such and such has a nice car/house/vacation/boyfriend/girlfriend. Why don't I? Except guess what? That's not really the whole story.

The biggest thing I've learned in the past few years while struggling with some issues of my own is that no one's life is perfect and they're struggling with life too. Everyone has problems. But you're not really supposed to talk about that. You don't wake up in the middle of the night worrying that your life is going nowhere and you don't know quite what to do about it and post that on Facebook. That'd be weird. And because that'd be weird, we've lost our concept of normal and we're afraid to talk about it or rely on each other to get through it. Facebook has become real life. We don't talk to our friends about important things anymore, because we've lost sight of what's important by posting about big issues and talking about them on Facebook instead in an attempt to matter. And then those threads get buried under the latest thing to post about. It's transitory and doesn't lend itself to working through everyday problems like what the hell your purpose is in life. We don't think about things longer than it takes to "like" them. And then we wonder why we're all walking around depressed.

And here I am posting it all on Facebook. Because that's what we do.

Facebook is designed to offer feedback. As humans, we evolved to value feedback and approval from others. It's hardwired. Facebook was designed to simulate this, and it does, but it's not real or lasting, like the high a drug user gets and although not as addictive, the comparison isn't new or originally my own. Social media is an emergent technology and the negatives haven't been fully examined yet. I'm glad they're being examined now, but we've let it get out of control. Facebook runs our lives. It takes a lot of time and effort to extract yourself from it. I'm in the process of doing that, but I come back, I binge post five statuses in a day. We all do. It's a problem. 

And I don't know what the solution is. We're all disconnected. We're seeing each other's lives in real time, but not the parts we care about and not the ugly parts that make the beautiful parts so great by comparison. Every single time I go on Facebook I find myself thinking when I log off that the site visit wasn't worth it. I get depressed, angry, annoyed, or all three far more often than I receive anything meaningful from it. Life's short. What's the point of feeling like that all the time? But I do it anyway, because hey, someone might have liked something I did or said, and then I can feel validated. It's nice to have that feedback, but what's the price and does it really mean anything?

These are questions I can't answer. This website is ingrained as deeply into my life as anyone else's to the point where I've just spent an hour writing about it instead of enjoying my night. I'm not going to spend more time formulating a solution. I'm going to post this and then forget about it until Monday. Because even if I just go make a cup of tea and watch the X-Files, or play Civilization, or read a magazine, I'm doing something. And it's fun. It doesn't even have to matter and I'll get more out of it than from finding out that you generated some clicks for Elite Daily or want to take my guns away again. If you want me to know that so much, tell me next time you see me. I'd rather hear it firsthand.

Ponies Should Pony Pony

I am a brony.

I've taken a lot of shit for that. Probably will for a long time. I don't care. I love this show. And I never know how to explain that to people. Problem is, the only way to understand it is to watch it, and who's secure enough these days to watch a show about cartoon ponies?

The answer is very few people, which is a shame because My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic may be one of the best shows on television.

You read that right. Before I go further, I'll admit to a few things. Many of the hardcore fans are weirdos and, having been to Bronycon more than once, a lot of them are autistic (nothing wrong with that, but it is what it is). But a lot of fans are also normal, socially well-adjusted mid-twenties males, which isn't surprising. You kind of have to be well-adjusted to admit you watch a show about cartoon ponies when you get right down to it, because you have to be comfortable enough with yourself to not give a damn about what other people think and comfortable enough with yourself to realize people will still like you even when you watch a show like this. It's not surprising so many bronies are male. Neo-masculinity (and probably femininity as well) is all about being comfortable in your own skin and not giving a damn if someone else wants to put you down for it.

Understanding the culture of MLP is important, because it plays directly into why the show itself is so damn good. The culture and the show itself are intertwined in a way that is distinctly and uniquely early 2000s. For the uninitiated, MLP draws from and integrates original content from its own vast fan base to such an extent that an entire episode is devoted to making canon most major fan theories and thanking the fandom. Name me another show like that. Just one. MLP may be about cartoon ponies, but is also the first show to heavily invest in its fans and crowdsource ideas for episodes in a seamless manner, and what is this millennium about if not integration and communication? The Internet, where most MLP media takes shape, is THE technology of the early 21st century, and MLP is the first, and so far only, show to understand that and allow it to shape the direction of its series.

It's a simple concept, but an important one. Most shows attempt to invest the watcher, but what greater investment is there than integrating fan-generated art and narrative into the show itself? MLP: FiM is not just a show; it is a living organism, and a symbiotic one. The show creates content; the fans create content based on that content; the writers incorporate it; the show evolves in a way no other show on television does. It is unique. It is a phenomenon. It is unmatched in most media even 15 years into the millennium. MLP is the present and future.

But people are afraid to like it, because ponies. And that's fucking stupid.

What you have to understand about MLP is that it's not just a show; it's a culture. There is a slang and a mematic form of communication built around it in a way no other show has matched. Sure, you can quote other shows. You can reference them. But there's not a culture built around them in the same way. You're familiar with the premise of other shows, maybe even the episodes. There are (many) novels about, say Star Trek: TNG (another show I love, and as a sidenote, features an actor who does major voice work for and loves MLP: John DeLancie), but are those novels an integral and official part of the canon? No. In MLP, they absolutely are. The show and the fan base are inseparable.

Again, name me another show like that. Just one.

This is the main draw of MLP: FiM, but it is by no means the only one. A show for little girls? Watch this clip:

Yeah. I'm sure tons of little girls get that monologue. It's socially acceptable to watch Spongebob and Adventure Time (and should be, because they're great shows), so get it through your head that this show is on that level. Just because there are pink and purple ponies in it doesn't detract from that fact.

And what if little girls watch this show too? The lessons, about loyalty, friendship, culture, individuality and community balance? What's the harm there? And why can't adults learn that shit too? What's to disagree with in MLP exactly? That friends and relationships are good and important? That people matter? That striving to grow as a person is good? God forbid anyone watch a show with those messages. In a cynical world, MLP is about being happy and loving the people around you. Who in the the hell is such a total asshole that they want to trash that?

Watching an episode of MLP takes 20 minutes. If you're embarrassed, fucking watch it in your own home. No one will know. It's been my experience -and I've found this to be universal in the community- that once you watch one, you watch another. Then another. Then another. Then you're a brony. And you know what? That's ok. That's great. Because this is a good show and there's no other show like it on TV. Yes the main characters are ponies.

So fucking what?

The Stars and Barred

This flag is a hate symbol. It doesn't matter if you argue that it's derived from a Hindu symbol, or that the events of the Holocaust were 70 years ago. This flag stands for something dark, evil, and brutal. Germans, largely, don't claim that it's a part of their heritage. They don't put it on their cars. They don't fly it above their capitols. They are ashamed of that part of their past, as they should be, and swastikas in Germany are generally considered distasteful.

Today is a big day and a day I never thought I'd see. Two of the biggest retailers in America are refusing to sell items which probably make them a large amount of money because they are symbols of hate. That's what the Confederate flag is.

I'm going to get this out of the way now: I'm calling the above flag the Confederate flag. I know it's not the national flag of the Confederate States of America. Everyone who knows me knows that I know that. I'm calling it that anyway for simplicity. Please don't try to engage me in debate about it.

There's something we also need to get out of the way right now: the Confederacy was wrong. It just was. Please don't try to tell me that its members were fighting for state's rights, or resisting some kind of Northern aggression. Do not try to tell me the war was about tariffs or federal power or a way of life or Southern Pride. The Confederacy existed primarily to propagate and expand American slavery. If you disagree with that, that is your right, but you are objectively wrong. This is not just my opinion. I have made it a significant part of my life to study slavery. I know more about it than  the majority of people in this country do or ever will. I know what I'm talking about. I have two degrees to prove it. The CSA was founded on slavery. It just was.

Here's something else that needs to be said: slavery was bad. There are still some people who will attempt to downplay or even argue against that. Again, they are objectivity wrong. Slavery was cruel and brutal in most cases. Slaves did not like being enslaved, nor were they better off under slavery than being free either in America or their home nations in Africa. Even a lucky slave who might have had a kind master (and this was not the norm) was still a slave. Slavery is, in essence, the stealing of another's life, and it is wrong. And slaveholders were wrong.

These are the facts. If you disagree, you shouldn't even be reading this, because you either need to go educate yourself on this or are simply stubbornly dedicated to being wrong.

All of that is why this is a big day for America.

As a country, we've hadn't really reached the point where major retailers would be willing to stop selling Confederate paraphernalia before today, because it's just so darn profitable. It's profitable because there is still a very large segment of the country, by no means limited to the South, that thinks the Confederate flag stands for anything other than slavery and racism. Some people have claimed that it's "become" a symbol of the South, rather than a symbol of slavery, but that's not a great argument, because what you're basically doing is defining the South by the rebellion it waged so it could keep oppressing blacks. That's not so great if you're trying to claim that your region of the country is awesome and that you should be proud of it. That's why Germans don't proudly fly the Nazi flag as a symbol of Germany and German heritage - they don't exactly want Germany to be defined by the Holocaust, nor should they.

Some people claim that the Confederate flag stands for states' rights, small government, or independence. That doesn't really work either, though, because, as I've noted, the Confederacy wasn't really fighting for those things. It was fighting for one right in particular, which was the right to own other people, and taking away someone else's rights isn't really a right, much less something you should be literally willing to die for.

When you get right down to it, the Confederate flag is just a really shameful reminder that half of our country entered a life and death struggle to oppress black people.

I'm not saying the Confederate flag should be ignored. I'm not saying it should be swept under the rug. We need to talk about it. We need to acknowledge that it exists. We need to accept that America's greatest shame was slavery and work through everything that means for us today as a country.

What I am saying is that no one should be proudly waving the Stars and Bars.

I'm all for free speech and I would never support a law to ban the Confederate Flag. But just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should. If you are going around displaying the Confederate flag as a symbol of pride you either do not know what it symbolizes or you do and you don't care.

There's something else too, that many Americans aren't considering. There's a lot of talk about what that flag means to Southerners, and what its absence would mean to them, but in that context, "Southerners" implicitly means "white Southerners." That flag already gives me the creeps. I can't even begin to imagine what it would be like if I was descended from slaves. Hell, even if I wasn't, the use of that flag by racists throughout American history might make me feel really really uncomfortable upon seeing it if I was a black American, whether my ancestors were slaves or not.

I say "might" because I don't want to fall into the trap of thinking that all blacks (or whites, Asians, Hispanics etc.) must have the same opinion on literally anything. Still, one has to imagine that arguments that claim that that flag is ok can't be shared by a rather large proportion of Southerners, black or white.

And that's a good thing.

No one should be comfortable waving the Confederate flag around outside of a historical context, much like no one should be comfortable using the word nigger outside of a historical context. It's just not ok. And finally, after hundreds of years, we, as a country, are getting around to admitting that.

Symbols may be what people make them, but in some cases, they've represented something so horrific that it becomes impossible to use them without invoking that thing. The Confederate flag was carried by men who were fighting to preserve the very worst America ever had to offer, for an institution that brutalized men and women, tore their families apart, tortured them mentally and physically, and killed them by the thousands. That these men and women were able to survive, let alone thrive, under such a system, that they were able to resist in any way and make lives for themselves is not only impressive, it is heroic. Those are the men and women we should be respecting and looking to as examples of American heroes, not those who carried the Stars and Bars and certainly not those who founded the country it represented.

The Confederate flag is a symbol of a dark past whose legacy we have not yet come to terms with fully. We have not yet reached total equality, and it may be hundreds of years yet until we do, if we do. That is the legacy of the Stars and Bars. That is the direct result of the efforts of those who carried it. We can't fix that overnight, but we can help to try to fix it by refusing to carry that flag ourselves.