What Next? Security or Freedom?

Has our exertion and fumbles in this "War on Terror" worn down our resolve?  Are we too weary to take on another challenge?  

Should we now turn inward and rebuild, letting down our guard against evil in the world?  Or should we maintain the struggle for a better future while  allowing our treasure and freedom to slowly drain away?


Heady Heights

In the decade after the Soviet Union fell, the world opened up to us all; a booming economy and planetary freedom seeming ours for the taking.  As the Iron curtain opened up to trade with the world our new communications technologies boomed.  Financial practices were loosen creating a vast new source of credit for anyone who could ask for money.  All over the globe the economies of the world soared.

9/11 shocked us.  A large scale attack inside USA borders, long protected by vast oceans, put fear in hearts.  I remember distinctly that in small towns across the land, people who afraid that their own little community would be the next target, demanded the government act in a big and dramatic way.  Our surprise exaggerated the threat until we felt existence itself may be threatened. 

"They" wanted to take away our freedoms.



Shock and Awe


The reaction to this new horror was to spend blood and treasure on security, combat and construction of public works here and in far away lands.  Huge build ups in surveillance,  secret soldiers, and military might drove us forward.  Massive government agencies were restructured to face the looming doom of a landless enemy who would do our "homeland" harm.

War was waged in places where conflict had already raged for thousands of years.  Free people thought technology, money,  science, and even ideology would be naturally triumphant.  Who could dare stand before such awesome piles of money and military might?

Victory Apparent?

After a decade of effort at home and around the globe, the criminals who would hurt us were caught or captured.  Ben Laden was put in Davy Jone's Locker.  Although violence recruited new enemies, they too were sought out and brought to pay a price.

With time, terrorism itself no longer seems an imminent and real threat to us individually.  We gradually felt our small towns safe again.

Walking Wounded

Devastation and turmoil were left in our wake, as millions of lives lay shattered and radically changed.  Revolutions were triggered across dozens of countries as dictators and tyrants fell.  New governments are not always good governments.  Now nations are unstable, in chaos, or even engaged in brutal civil wars.

Professional soldiers, stretched to their limit and beyond suffer from combat fatigue, long separation from family, and traumatic stress.

Economies built on a bubble of easy borrowed money spent by citizens, corporations, and congresses have left the world economy teetering like a drunken sailor on a pay day binge.

The west wearies of fear and violence.




Forever Threatened

Terrorism's will never be gone.  Terrorism is a tactic that our enemies may pursue again.  Terrorism can never be defeated by armies or money or science or technology.  Terrorism will be tried again by someone else in another place.  Terrorism will come when we least expect it; for its very strength is it's sudden shock and brutal violence.

Security, secrets, and spying, initially embraced as a necessary evil now scares us with their attendant loss of freedoms.  No one wants to lose all their privacy in order to feel safe.  Now the tools of a war on terrorism scare us more than the terrorism itself does.

If high levels of security are maintained, the very institutions that protect us put privacy and freedom at high risk.  A dystopian future of governmental control intruding too far into our private lives  has begun to replace the fear of violence from angry people far away.  The gradual loss of liberty has become too high a price to pay for becoming less terrified.

If we ramp down our security another attack is probable some day; perhaps sooner, perhaps later.  The opportunity to surprise will present itself eventually to people of bad will.  



Choking the Chicken

We can not be Chicken Little assuming the sky of terrorism is falling down up us.
Neither can we be ostriches buried with our heads in the sand.
We can no more dismantle the entire security apparatus than we leave it in place as it is.  Both of these options leave us at perils we do not wish.

Which security works best that intrudes least?  Can such a thing be found?  
Could we stop patting down grandma at the airport?  
Could we stop tracking every phone call in order to stop bad men with evil intent?  
Could we pull all our troops home and watch the world from inside a bunker of safety until the next threat appears?

What ever we do next, let us not again react rashly.  How questions such as these get answered will determine our children's futures.  

Meme - Freedom's Edge

I Got My Freedom, Bugger Off!

We claim to believe in ideals that transcend nations.  Freedom, equality, liberty, kindness, and cleanliness are values we hold dear. 

There are many details that divide us.  The proper role of government, the degree to which freedom should be allowed, and the amount of kindness our relationships require are all values up for debate.

The core values remain.  We speak of them with pride.  We claim to be willing to defend them with our actions and even our lives.

Ideals Un-extended

Yet, we exclude those who are not in our nation states from these very values.  We do not act as if we believe that all humans, in all places deserve these ideals. 

Where are our values here?

When a crazed shooter kills our children in a school we react with shock and horror.  When our drones kill as many children in a foreign land we look the other way.

We hold elections and expect them to be fair and open.  When those in other lands elections are corrupted and the will of the people there subverted we look the other way.

Before the United States was attacked at Pearl Harbor, millions died around the world in a struggle against tyranny.  Most of us thought we should not get involved in their conflict and passed Neutrality Acts believing that isolationism was good for us.  Largely Republican, conservatives claimed we should take care of our own and let the others die or live of their own doing.  As late as March of 1941, we made illegal the selling of arms to the British.

What obligation do we have here?

Over a billion human beings live in poverty and destitution around the world.  Lacking food, water, sanitation, clothing, shelter and education, they have no chance at obtaining the freedoms we find so precious.  The modern industrial democracies do little to aid them unless ‘national interests’ are threatened.

The evidence is clear, we at best pay lip-service for extending our ideals beyond our own national borders. Not just the United States, but virtually all modern nation states.  The world of the haves looks away from the have-nots.  

That others do not have freedom, equality, liberty, kindness and cleanliness is not our problem. Our deeds tell the world "I got my freedom. Bugger off."

Spare No Cost

In our ‘War on Terror’ we have invaded other countries, sent out assassination squads, tortured human beings and engaged in other inhumane acts in order to defend our freedoms.  As George W. Bush said in his 2002 State of the Union address, “We are a country awakened to danger and called to defend freedom.” He continued “They hate our freedoms: our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.”

We have succeeded in defeating al Qaeda.  No repeat attacks have occurred on our soil.  The mafia like organization that attacked us essentially exists no more.  

Our tactics and methods have taken over 10 years and cost over a $1,400,000,000,000 ($1.4 trillion) dollars to achieve this end.  We have spared no cost in finding and stopping the people who brutally killed a few thousand citizens.

Of course we should have found and brought those who did such heinous acts to justice.  That is clearly a necessary course of action.  

Safety and justice require we find and hold accountable those who commit acts of great evil.  Often evil acts are required in order to overcome other, greater evils.

In the same time frame, we have spent less than $150,000,000,000 ($150 billion) on all our foreign aid, military and economic, to all other needs in the world.  If you subtract the economic aid to Afghanistan and Iraq where the damage of war and nation building are occurring based on our War on Terror, only $112,000,000,000 ($112 billion) was spent.

Isolationism

Suggesting that we only invest in our own security flies in the face of our stated ideals.  We become more secure as other nations prosper.  Spreading our ideals is the best defense against aggression. 

Seeking what we have

If Latin America had more freedom, less corruption, more liberty, and the other things we cherish, we would not have an immigration problem.  Only because there is such a huge imbalance in the values we hold so precious is the United States worth moving to illegally. 

The United States is not the only country that has an immigration problem.  Europe and other developed nations also experience this migration rush from lands where freedoms are not allowed to lands where they are precious.

Many are advocating that we cannot afford to help others now.  Claiming we are borrowing on our future, they wish to cut what little aid we do provide.  This is a short sighted view of our own best interest. 

By not engaging in spreading our values to the world we risk our future more.  The consequences of not making investments that spread our values are dire.  Without our assistance less free cultures will allow things we do not want to thrive and grow.  Hate, lack of opportunity, dependence, and restrictions flourish in places where we do not engage.

Afghanistan is an example where lack of engagement led to disaster. After the Soviet Union withdrew, the land spiraled into lawlessness.  The freedoms we love disappeared.  A drug trade prospered.  Warlords and corrupt men ruled the land.  Our lack of involvement led to calamitous results for the United States.  Had we kept trying to spread our values in a peaceful manner we may have avoided all the evils that came about.  

The cost of doing nothing is always higher than the cost of spreading our values.

Putting our Money Where Our Mouth Is

If we truly believe in our freedoms and ideals, we should be helping the rest of humanity to achieve them.

There are many non-violent means of spreading our values.  Teaching people to read, job skills, and hygiene seem great places to start.  Helping to build infrastructure like roads, wells, and power stations seems positive also.

As we debate where to cut spending in this time of economic contraction, spreading our values is one place we cannot cut.

The developed nations of the planet have a moral obligation to do more.  It is not sufficient to think we are safe because we have these values.

To turn away is hypocritical.  To suggest that only the wealthy deserve freedom, equality, liberty, kindness, and cleanliness is to live a lie.  

It is in our own best interest to help lift all humans into those things we claim to hold dear.


Note: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights might be a good place to start.  It was adopted by the United Nations in 1948 as a result of the world's experiences from the Second World War.  

Light & Learning Limit Liberty

Do you believe in liberty and free will?  Perhaps you think everything is pre-determined to a plan?  Maybe you think there is a mixture of the two?  No matter your views, we have limits to our actions, chosen or fated.  If we CAN choose, then liberty demands we choose well.

One way to think about time is as a line.  We are on a point on the line in the time we call Now.

Our now is constantly moving toward the Future and away from the Past.  This kind of describes our everyday of experience of time.

The distance between things is space.

We can collapse space into a map of east/west and north/south and put it on the time line as our shared experience of Space Now.

With this imagined view, space looks like a map moving through time.

Some argue that the future and past are is fixed and we move from the past into the future with no choices.

A determined existence suggests that time and free will are but illusions experienced as we move down the line of time.

Liberty

Many accept that there is free will; that we have some ability to make choices.  We can say we have the liberty of our choices.

Free will means that of all the possible pasts, our choices collapsed into the now that we have.

 A cone is used to represent our collective choices that bring us to this moment.

Each choice made by each individual limits the possible now we can experience.

Once the now moves on from the past, we are unable to go back and change it.

Our experience past is gone.  The choices that collapsed into the now are no longer available to us.

Free will also implies we have a range of possible futures.

Each choice we make in the now limits the possibilities of the future.

This would make the free will time line and its possibilities look more like two cones, one of past and one of future, connected to the now.

Our past collapses into the now limiting the potential of our futures.

Light Limits Liberty

Nothing has ever been detected that moves faster than the speed of light.

The best we know the speed of light places hard and fast limits on what we can do.  

Light speed places a plausible limit onto the future we can choose.

There are still choices we can make that take us to the limits of the possible, but they may not lead to the future we prefer.

When we fail to make choices about our actions in the now, we limit ourselves as if there is no choice at all.   Without choices being made in the now, the future is limited to the probable.

Setting goals, imagining possible futures, and acting in the now, we can move from the probable to the preferable.

This is harder to do and often takes repeated changes as there is a tendency to return to the probable rather than the preferable.


Knowledge Limits Liberty

Our knowledge also places a plausible limit on what we can become.  The more we as a species know, the great the range of opportunities we have for our future.

When we decide not to learn, we decide to limit our possible futures.

Each choice we make limits what is learn-able by us as individuals and as a group.

There are something’s we will never know.  Our brains are small and the universe so large.




Choose Learning

The choices made by our ancestors have brought us to where we are now.

If we believe in liberty, then there is an awesome responsibility on our shoulders.

The more we learn, the greater our potential futures can be.

When we fail to learn, we limit our children’s possibilities.   We even limit all future generation’s possibilities.

There are some potential futures we can already never realize.

Within our ability we should stretch for the edges of the possible to find a preferable future for our species.

Is the US Becoming Despotic?

"Avoid the comfortable idea that the mere form of government can of itself safeguard a nation against despotism." ~ Harold Laswell, PHD of Yale University in 1946

Democracy and Despotism

At the end of World War II, Encyclopedia Britannica's film division produced a film exploring how societies and nations rank on the spectrum from democracy to despotism.

Having fought such a violent struggle against fascism, there was much thought given to what had happened and how it might be avoided in future.

Reflecting upon their experience, the warning signs of despotism were noted:

1. Concentration of power into a few hands
2. Fewer people considered worthy of respect

These cautions operate in our current era.  They also suggest we should keep power divided and respect other's right to hold different viewpoints.


Concentration of Government Power

We have divided government today.  The supreme court and congress are not concentrations of power at this time.

Divided power

The supreme court is often divided in its decisions with none getting their way all the time.  Most decisions are split and few unanimous. Debate and dissension seems standard operating procedure.

Congress is divided between the left and right; the Senate is Democrat controlled and the House Republican.  Divisions within parties even constantly struggle to gain tactical advantage.  A push and pull between competing ideas is a daily battle which unfolds before us.

Many individual states trend toward one ideology or another.  Many other states have divided ideologies.  There is no clear concentration of political power across the states, although a few states may not be divided.

Distribution of U.S. wealth

Concentration of Economic Power

There appear to be business, individuals or other interests that have concentrated power.

Economic power has become very concentrated.  Fewer and fewer people control the wealth of the land.  This slanting of the distribution of wealth allows hidden political power to accumulate.  While voting may continue, the laws are drafted by those with money to influence more often than the those who represent the electorate.

Over the past 50 years, economic power has become concentrated into fewer and fewer hands.

A strong middle class would be a good counter balance to coalescing economic interests.  Taxes, law and purchasing power can be used to counter balance those whose economic interests attempt to control the people.

The idea that only a few of us should have earned the wealth of the land is warning sign that despots could be near.  I do think there is some secret plot, rather fear a trend that puts our democracy at risk.

I am also not advocating socialism as a solution.  An equal playing field for all citizens to compete fairly will allow wealth and incomes to remain unconcentrated.  Capitalism must be regulated, greed should not be the means for political power.


Worthy of Respect

In the arena of respect however, our society may be at a higher risk of becoming despotic.  People of strong views are often not listening to one another.  We tend to group together in insulated bubbles of ideology.

Respectful?

With many options in media, people flock to political identity groups.  In doing so, we have begun to regularly disrespect one another.

Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh would be examples of voices that frequently show disdain for their opponents on the right.  How they speak to others illustrates incivility.  Using disdain,  interruption, and ridicule as tactics; their lack of esteem for others as human beings is easily heard.

On the left we have examples in Steven Colbert and Huffington Post.  Frequent coarseness, flippancy, and impiety are used to present their political opponents as being less than human.  Often cloaked in humor, the negative impacts can be devastating to persons rather than ideas.

Of course all humans are within their rights to be biased.  It is not the bias that leads to despotism.  It is the lack of respect for others that can do so.

Casting political stones

Mental Violence

While it may be fun to use Ad Hominem (to the person) attacks, they are dangerous when they become the standard means of communicating with each other.

Ridicule, dismissal, disdain, interruption, rudeness, and impoliteness are not tactics that mature, reasoned adults should use in discourse.  Verbal abuse is a form of mental violence.  Allowing constant and frequent verbal abuse leads to devaluing human beings.

Despots thrive in an environment of hate.


What Not To Do

One should not question the moral character of a person who disagrees with us.  Actions  and opinions can be found immoral by one or many of us.  Holding an idea by itself is not immoral.  It is our duty to help others become moral, not dismiss or persecute them as unworthy of morality.  

When a person's circumstances are used to define their views by others, it is a sign of lack of respect. Saying "They only passed that law to gain votes" or "only the uneducated listen to that idea" are disrespectful means of attacking a person rather than an idea.

Guilt by association is another frequent way of disrespecting other people.  This fallacy says "This person thinks a thing and another person we all know is evil thinks the same thing, therefore they both must be evil."  These arguments devalue the person rather than the idea.


Disagreement is Normal

No one has perfect morality, circumstance or association.  We all fail at somethings.  People who claim perfection are acting dishonestly.

Every man is a sinner

When we are all made to agree with one opinion, we risk despotism.  Disagreement is healthy for all of us to learn better ways of thinking and being.  Dissent is healthy and required for a democracy to thrive.

Divided political power is a strength of democracy.  Dictators can not control divided power.  Kings do not prosper when people contend for different views.  It may not be a pretty form of government, it is the best we have found so far.

Divided economic power is also a strength that keeps away despotism.  A strong, vibrant middle class is necessary in order to not allow one or a few to control the land and its laws.

Ridiculing people rather than ideas demeans us all.  Disagree, debate, and vote.
Do not demean people for their ideas, good or bad.

Prioritizing Freedoms

Illusion of Freedom

Are we free?  Can we be free?  Is freedom a given?  Or perhaps freedom is only an illusion?  Can any freedom not come at a cost to another?

One view of freedom

High above a police drone flies, camera pointing down upon a young couple as they skinny dip in a secluded park.

Buying a pack of cigarettes at the local gas station, purchase data is analyzed for poor health choices and insurance coverage denied.

Attending the start of school, a child’s hand is placed on heart and pledge recited while peers and teacher watch, ensuring compliance to accepted behavior.

Pushing a broom on Saturday, the Jewish laborer knows there will be no future employment for him if he does not.

Another view of freedom

Blowing his nose, the old man wishes he was free from the pain of allergy.

We use the word “freedom” frequently in our culture to mean that we are able to act on our will.  Our expectation of deeds without restraint leads us to believe we are at liberty to live our lives.

The reality is we are only free in part.  Actions have consequence.  Freedoms are not equal. 

Each thinking person finds their own view of how to live their lives.  Each living person is driven by causes beyond their control.  Freedom is a goal that may never be fully reached by all people, all the time.

Assumed Freedom

Our culture assumes we have some degree of free action.  Custom holds us responsible for deciding what we do.  Fate and destiny are assumed to be generated, at least in part, by each person.

We expect economic freedom to make contracts, buy and sell, and keep the money we earn.

We desire the freedom to worship or not as we choose.

We want to move freely about without interference.

We expect privacy in our persons and homes.

We demand freedom from harm; to protect ourselves, loved ones, and property.

We aspire to freely choose government and laws it creates and enforces.

We wish to make free choices for ourselves so long as no one else is hurt.

We insist upon speaking freely, to express our views, and join the public debate.

In all these cases, the independence of action, the ability to express our individual will is taken for granted.

Freedoms Conflict

Freedom during war is different

Each freedom does not exist alone.  They are co-dependent and conflict with each other.  The price of one freedom is often the limit upon another.

Our desire for protection causes us to desire police.  Giving police the tools they need to protect us limits our freedom of movement, our freedom of choice, and cost part of our economic freedom.

Our desire for pleasure has consequences on others. Smoking, gambling or drinking have a cost in resources beyond our own persons.  We limit our movement and privacy to ensure our pleasures do not harm others.

Our desire for lawful governance costs money taking away our economic freedom.  We give up our free movement to ensure regulated transport.  Our desire for protection from government means giving up privacy.  We limit our choices in order to allow the whole to prosper.

Our desire for freedom of speech allows bad ideas to be aired.  People with foolish thought or hostile intent can harm us all.  We limit our speech when it causes the society to suffer. 

Freedom in the Balance

Our balances of freedoms are the result of choices we make as a society.

We prioritize one freedom over another. 

Freedom during peace is different

Screaming “FIRE” in a crowded theater when there is none is forbidden.  Such speech is prohibited so that fear does not cause a stampede of injury.  Freedom of speech is sometimes limited for freedom of protection.

Unwarranted searches of our homes are not allowed so that we can maintain the privacy of our lives.  We sometimes value freedom of privacy more than freedom of security.

Not paying transportation tax is prohibited so that we can move more freely.  Moving about freely has a cost we sometimes value more than economic freedom.

We choose freedoms differently with circumstance. 

At one time we thought limiting the vice of alcohol was necessary for other freedoms to endure. 

Feeling our security was threatened in time of war, we limited economic freedom so that money and material could be directed to the soldiers and battles.

Freedom Struggles

Any one freedom can trump the others.  Each of us has a different view of how we prioritize freedom at any time.  When enough of us want one freedom to override another we can collectively make it so. 

Struggling to define the next freedom balance

The balance between freedoms is under constant change.  First one type of freedom will dominate then another.  Later a different freedom will become more important to us.  War, disaster, or even our dreams of the future change our perspectives and thereby our priorities of freedom.

At no time will freedoms be equal.  Trade-offs are searched for in each time and place. 

We use our politics and government to move the balance between freedoms.

Freedom is not an absolute.  Freedom is a balance between competing desires and needs.

Next time you say you are “free”, stop and consider what you mean by it.  Is “free” what you meant before?  Is “free” what you will mean again?  What new balance of “free” are you willing to make?


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NRA: Not Representative Anymore

The National Rifle Association (NRA) has been taken over by the firearms industry and is promoting radical views to increase sales.  Hunters, hobbyists, and decent citizens are being fed propaganda from secret agendas of greed.

I want to exercise my second amendment rights.  I can no longer support the NRA.  We citizens have the right to own and responsibly use firearms.  It is enshrined in the constitution. The firearms industry has used the NRA to twist our rights into something sinister. 

Do not be fooled.  Not everyone against the immoral practices of firearm manufactures is trying to take your guns away.  Do not let your fear overwhelm your good sense.  Do not let the intentional polarization of the debate allow greed and fraud run amok in our land.

Way Back When

When I was very young we were not wealthy.  Dad supplemented our meager chicken coop meat supply with deer, duck, trout, and salmon. 

Generational bonding on the hunt

Grandpa shared his “The American Rifleman”, the NRA’s magazine, with me.  I read about adventure cuddled in a cozy army surplus sleeping bag.  Lusting after my own .22, begging for my own BB gun, watching dad load his own ammo or simply watching my grandpa clean his vintage M1 rifle were apart of my childhood.

Starting in 1977, as a soldier, I learned how to use many kinds of firearms proficiently.  Safe handling of pistols, assault rifles, and mortars became my profession. 

Throughout its history, the NRA had been a bipartisan group of liberals and conservatives that shared common interests in guns, hunting, and marksmanship.

The NRA was a rifle club.  It worked with the National Guard to improve member’s marksmanship.  Hunter education, marksman competitions, and hobby promotion were its main focus.  This hobby sporting group even advocated conserving natural habitat for game.  National training programs taught Boy Scouts how to handle guns safely.

Radical Revolution

While I was learning the weapons of war, the NRA became radicalized.  Fevered, angry Second Amendment fundamentalists using walkie-talkies, bull horns, and orange baseball caps staged a highly organized coup to take over leadership of the NRA. 

The organization went from a club for sportsmen, to a radical political lobby. 

Dissent shouted down 

The cause of the revolution was the Gun Control Act of 1968.  Incited by turmoil of the 1960s where multiple assassinations, street violence and riots drove Congress to regulate the interstate commerce of firearms. 

The Act made it illegal for convicted criminals, addicts, the mentally ill or non-citizens to purchase guns. Many conservatives, including Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon, publicly supported the act.

The NRA’s new leader after the coup was Harlon Carter.  Mr. Carter had been convicted of murdering a 14 year old Hispanic boy in Texas while attempting to kidnap him. 

Carter proclaimed violent felons, the mentally deranged, and addicts had a right to gun ownership because it was “a price we pay for freedom”.  He even advocated giving grade school children pistols for self defense from bullies.

Fear Mongering for Money

Using fear and terror tactics, the new NRA leaders declared that the government was trying to take away all the guns from everyone. 

Harlan Carter

Any limitation on firearms was declared traitorous.  Everyone, at any time, and in any place should be able to have a firearm.  Adults, children, criminals and insane all should be free of any restrictions.  Church, school, funerals, and athletic events should allow the bearing of arms.

As professionals who work in advertising should know, fear sells.  Fear sells better than sex or greed.

Regular bulletins were mailed to members, each escalating the trepidation that guns were about to disappear.   Article after article, press release after press released followed.  Constantly repeating the threat to freedom and the imminent demise of the second amendment, terror was put into the hearts of men. 

Scaring people by saying things that were not true gave good people doubt.  Hearing lies told over and over again, many began to believe the deceit was truth.  A closed mutual support network of alarm amplified the messages even further.

Fear worked.

In only a few years, membership in the NRA had tripled.  The new members brought their cash with them. 

Selling branded apparel, bumper stickers and decals at high markup, the money rolled in. More money was raised by selling, cancer, theft, and medical insurance.  Like carnival hucksters, they dazzled members with overpriced trinkets and misdirection. 

Radical Lobbying

Another of the revolutionary leaders, Neal Knox, moved to Washington DC and launched a radical gun lobby effort.  Knox claimed that the assassinations and other tragedies of the 1960s had been part of a vast plot to control guns.  Saying “that some of the incidents could have been created for the purpose of disarming the people of the free world” he used NRA money to lobby for gutting the enforcement of the Gun Control Act of 1968.

Neal Knox

The money, lobbying, and campaign contributions paid off when Congress passed the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986.  The new law stopped government from tracking gun ownership and allowed ammo to be sent through the mail and across state lines unregulated.  The law stripped the ability for the government to know when a criminal, addict, or insane person had been sold a gun.

Some lawmakers said off the record that they would have voted against the act but feared retaliation from the NRA’s now powerful gun lobby come election time.

Corporate Money

Money from gun manufactures significantly impacts the funding of NRA’s lobbying effort.  Private gifts from owners of manufactures and from gun industry firms have been estimated at over $70 million per year.

Not very wise

Without firearm industry’s donations, the NRA would not be able to maintain its membership programs, much less lobby government. 

“The NRA is basically helping to make sure the gun industry can increase sales," Representative Carolyn McCarthy "No one is challenging NRA members' right to own guns."

Midway USA, Sturm, Ruger & Co. Smith & Wesson, and Beretta USA are all large funders of the NRA’s lobbying efforts. 

The $16 billion a year firearm industry uses the NRA as its spokesman.  The NRA no longer represents gun owners and hobbyists. 

The NRA “translates the industry's needs into less crass, less economically interested language -- into defending the home, into defending the country," said Tom Diaz of the Violence Policy Center.

No firearms here please

"The NRA clearly benefits from the gun industry," William Vizzard, a former agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. "There’s a symbiotic relationship. They have co-aligned goals much more than 30 or 40 years ago."

They "started out as a grassroots organization and became an industry organization," Vizzard also said, "The NRA is generating fear.  The industry has learned that the more controversy there is about guns, the more guns sell -- whether it’s a legitimate controversy over a bill, or a trumped-up one like, 'Obama’s been re-elected, they’re going to take away our guns.'"

In his book, Ricochet: Confessions of a Gun Lobbyist, former NRA lobbyist Richard Feldman said that the NRA had degenerated into "a cynical, mercenary political cult," that was "obsessed with wielding power while relentlessly squeezing contributions from its members."

Partisan Politics

With the new lobbying effort, the NRA came to be closely tied to the Republican Party.  What had once been a non-partisan hobby organization now was directly involved in one-sided election politics.

Responsible training is good

Activists began to claim that black helicopter carrying federal agents dressed like ninjas were coming to take the guns away.  Using the tragedies at Ruby Ridge, Idaho and Waco, Texas; Democratic control was proclaimed to be “jackbooted Government thugs” who wanted “power to take our constitutional rights, break in our doors, seize our guns, destroy our property and even injure and kill us.”

This was too much for even staunch conservatives like Ronald Reagan who wrote about the assassination attempt on his person “Lives were changed forever, and all by a Saturday-night special - a cheaply made .22 caliber pistol - purchased in a Dallas pawnshop by a young man with a history of mental disturbance. This nightmare might never have happened if legislation that is before Congress (the Brady Bill)... had been law."

George H.W. Bush, who resigned his NRA membership over this radical rhetoric, wrote "I was outraged when, even in the wake of the Oklahoma City tragedy when the NRA, defended his attack on federal agents as ‘jack-booted thugs'.  To attack Secret Service agents or A.T.F. people or any government law enforcement people as ‘wearing Nazi bucket helmets and black storm trooper uniforms’ wanting to ‘attack law abiding citizens’ is a vicious slander on good people."

Changing Tactics, Not Direction

A stunned ex-president of the NRA observed “We were akin to the Boy Scouts of America … and now we’re cast with the Nazis, the skinheads and the Ku Klux Klan.”

Guns and Moses

To change their growing negative public image, they decided to bring in an action movie star, Charlton Heston.  Heston put a new spin on the same rhetoric.  Predicting the loss of liberty, Heston recast the NRA message in patriotic terms.  Using images of Pearl Harbor, Concord, Lexington and farmers he called firearms “sacred stuff”.

Actively working for the Republican campaign, Heston helped sway sufficient voters in the swing states of Arkansas and West Virginia to very narrowly defeat Al Gore’s Democratic campaign for the presidency.

In the most recent election of 2012, the NRA lobbying group directly spent $20 million on federal campaigns alone.  With new Super PACs it is no longer possible to know how much was spent indirectly.  The NRA spends significantly more on issue specific advertising and soft money political action committees which effect elections results. 

Fourteen out of the 29 lobbyists employed by the NRA previously held government jobs.  90% of those were Republican appointees, prior to working for the NRA. 

Gun Sales Explode

According to the General Social Survey, the NRA’s partisan lobbying has radically changed gun ownership in the United States.

Households with guns by political party

Using Charlton Heston as a spokesman, gun sales exploded.

Number of background checks per year.

By spreading the fear that a Democratic President would take their guns away, the industries sales accelerated the trend even further.

Obama supports the Second Amendment and he's unabashed about saying so.  Those who say he is lying are trying to manipulate us. 

Number of firearms manufactured by year

The NRA is more interested in fighting than winning second amendment rights.  Fighting increases gun sales.  Winning would make us safer.

Find a Better Way

No civilized person should support or approve of the misuse, the criminal use nor deranged use of lethal weapons of any kind. 

We need to agree on a return to public civility on this issue.  We must be considerate of each other and address our violence issues as concerned, rational adults.

We must find a way to allow responsible citizens to keep and bear arms, while protecting ourselves from criminals, accident, and the mentally ill.

Perhaps arming teachers with Tasers is a better solution than handguns.  Perhaps better ways to identify criminals and the insane can be found.  Perhaps legal and medical professionals can help us find better ways to reduce violence.

I will not pretend to have the answers to solve this complex problem.  There are no simple solutions to violence.

However, I will not support the NRA until it returns to its sporting, hobbyist roots.  I will not support the NRA until it stops being a prophet for firearm manufactures profits.