"Lawyers, Guns, and Money." Warren Zevon

Last night, I was having a political discussion with some relatives.  My cousin said that if the suggestions of the left, which he says focus on raising taxes, were enacted in combination with the suggestions of the right, which he says are about cutting expenses, the budget would be balanced in the blink of an eye.  What he forgot to consider is that the left don't only favor tax increases.  They also oppose program cuts.  And the right don't only advocate for program cuts, they also oppose tax increases.  So if you put them all together, they just cancel each other out, and you have no change.

This is why a number of long term and prominent Congress people, mostly Senators, from both sides of the aisle, have announced they've had enough, can't stand the partisan gridlock, and are not running for re-election.

I have been having a debate lately with a conservative friend who is also a gun advocate.  She forwarded a synthesis from someone else who identifies the causes of gun violence as the easy availability of guns, which he says cannot be impacted unless all guns are outlawed, the prevalence of extreme mental illness (he's also a psychiatrist), and a culture that cultivates antisocial dumbing down, like through violence-focused video games.  He calls his synthesis The Gun, The Killer, and The Culture.  He also says there are Constitutional Amendments that support each cause of violence.  The Second Amendment prevents gun control, the Fifth Amendment prevents involuntary commitment of sick people, and the First Amendment prevents curtailing of "entertainment."  According to my friend, this guy is a friend of hers, and he's "ready to shred his NRA card," because the NRA holds legislators hostage through its funding of them, and it threatens to politically assassinate them if they make any move toward gun control.

But in discussions with my friend, she says she thinks the big problem is the video games.  She likes the Second Amendment, which I keep telling her she misunderstands as preventing general gun control, and she's more ready to set aside some of the "protections" afforded by the First Amendment.  Many other people, including First Amendment adherents, want to protect free speech, but are more willing to qualify the "protections" afforded by the Second Amendment.  And civil rights advocates don't care what happens, as long as people are not forcibly institutionalized.  They're firm Fifth Amendment advocates.

It's the same problem as with the economy.  What everyone wants is not only to focus on someone else's end of the problem, but also that no one should intervene on their end of things.  And it leads to exactly the same stalemate and failure to progress.  If the economy is to improve, we cannot rely on taxing the hell out of someone else, and leaving all the programs fully as they are.  Nor can we slash any and all programs, and not raise taxes.  If gun violence is to be controlled, we need to pay attention to the perpetrators, control maladaptive and antisocial cultural influences, and call an end to promiscuous gun availability.  If the only sure way to do that is to have no gun availability, so be it.  It beats having people randomly assassinate each other, when they're flaky and hopped up on video games, and can get their hands on a gun.