From Debate to Dialogue: Changing the American Gun Conversation

It is time to change the nature of the conversation around firearms in America. The current dichotomous paradigm of ‘any call for firearm regulation is leftie fascism’ and ‘second amendment advocates condone mass murder’ is not helpful. The two sides of this ‘debate’ are two south poles; repelling each other. The more you try to bring them together, the stronger the force keeping them apart becomes. Hence the title of this post: the conversation needs to change. It needs to change from a debate to a dialogue.

A debate is two opposing sides putting forward their points of view, often shouting over each other. A dialogue is a conversation between two sides where each listens to the other with the purpose of finding common ground. America clearly has a debate over guns rather than a dialogue. There are, as previously noted, two extreme positions being advocated, and this is unhelpful. The question then becomes what, if anything, can be done to change the debate?

To attempt to change this debate is seemingly the equivalent of talking to the deaf or signing to the blind. Not only is communication impossible, but they are not able to hear you. No false equivalence intended here, but both sides are dug in, their position is not up for debate, and it is often defended by points that are either rhetorically charged or grounded in faulty logic. One example from each side should suffice.

MSNBC’S Lawrence O’Donnell, host of The Last Word, is typically an astute analyst who is not so obvious a propagandist as Rachel Maddow, though he has his flaws. Lawrence is fond of using forms of the phrase ‘Republicans have done everything in their power to make sure that our mass murderers are the best equipped mass murderers in the world’. Now while it is true that the GOP takes far more money from the NRA than the Democrats, the latter had a super majority in the Congress and controlled the Presidency for a time when Mr. Obama was in office and did nothing on the issue of regulating firearms. So they are no prize. But the point here is Lawrence’s politically charged rhetoric. This contributes nothing to the dialogue, because Lawrence is not engaged in a dialogue. This, rather, is a debating tactic. The former advances the discussion, the latter does not.

Examples of politically charged rhetoric and faulty logic on the right are legion, but typically, you see the wild strawman that lefties ‘want to take away our guns’, a politically charged statement if ever there was one. Analogous to the idea from the right in this country that advocates for renewable energy want to stop using coal tomorrow, that is a strawman, you made that up. No-one said that. I doubt even the most hardcore left activist wants to get rid of all guns. In a strange irony, similar to the drug war, all that would do is drive the product underground. But I digress. You also have the genetic fallacy on glaring display, the idea that something is wrong not because of the content of the argument, but because of the source (genesis).

So the tactics of both sides are flawed. Debate rather than dialogue, with flawed logic and charged rhetoric abounding. I want to turn now to an analysis of the typical sequence of events following a mass shooting, with commentary on the actions of both sides.

1. Shooting takes place, both sides react. The media, typically, is outraged at yet another mass shooting in America and attempts to gain facts. Both sides of the spectrum are seemingly in solidarity at this point. Agreement tends to exist in the face of tragedy. But it does not last.
2. Next is the first point of divergence. This may not be popular but it is true: depending on the race of the shooter, different narrative paths emerge. If the shooter is muslim, it’s terrorism and the right starts talking about internment camps. The lone shooter represents the entire religion and maybe we need to bomb somewhere. If the shooter is black, they represent the entire ‘thug’ culture and ‘it’s just how they are’ and perhaps stricter laws are necessary to combat ‘urban crime’. You know there is a joke about automatic weapons and black people in America: if black people purchased automatic weapons and practiced ‘open carry’ there would be gun laws within a week. Indeed. Finally, if the shooter is white, they are a mentally deranged lone wolf who does not represent the white community. Mental health, rather than law enforcement or a military response, becomes the issue.
3. Second point of divergence: guns. Left leaning media (and social media) reacts viscerally (which is understandable, if illogical) and advocates for firearm regulation in the aforementioned rhetorically charged terms. The right, by contrast, often advocates not acting rashly, gathering the facts and proceeding from there. While I appreciate the right’s position; we should not act rashly in the face of tragedy *cough* PATRIOT Act *cough*, the claim is disingenuous. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) is fond of this tactic. After multiple mass shootings he has said that rash action should not be taken, and the result was that nothing was done. The cynic in me is inclined to speculate that this tactic, which looks legitimate on the surface, is designed to exploit the 24-hour news cycle. They know that fact-finding takes time, and they also know that something else will come to the fore to take the place of the shooting, and more importantly, the issue of gun regulation.
4. We then see an attempt at a policy solution, typically bi-partisan, from two politicians not up for re-election in the midterms. The bill, if it makes is to the Congress at all, is shot down by the GOP, who, as mentioned, take the majority of the money from the NRA. The go-to case here is the so-called Manchin-Toomey Amendment of 2013, which was a background check bill, watered-down as it was. Protests against this type of reform are typically screeching choruses of ‘2nd Amendment’, ‘Cons’tu’shun’ and ‘freedom!’. Ok – not only does the much vaunted 2nd Amendment not advocate personal gun ownership (the phrase militia is in the text), simply screeching ‘2nd Amendment’ is not an argument. This term is used, much like ‘freedom’, because it makes the heels click. Finally, for all the cries about 2nd Amendment absolutists or extremists, they do believe in some form of weapon control and regulation. Don’t believe me? As Lee Camp said a few years ago ‘Not even [NRA EVP] Wayne La Pierre would advocate for a citizen’s right to own a tank‘ – and he has a point. We all believe in some form of weapon control and regulation – the issue is where we place the line.
5. The right then politicises the tragedy (is America no an equal opportunity country?) by advocating for more guns (Comedian Rush Limbaugh earlier this week advocated for concealed carry in schools). Alex Jones of Info Wars infamy then says the victims were paid actors and that the whole thing was a false flag operation designed to justify a liberal take-back of all the guns because lizard people put fluoride and DDT in the water supply to turn the frogs gay (that’s only a slight exaggeration). By this point, the issue of regulating firearms has long passed. You have your wish, Mr. Speaker: facts were garnered, and nothing was done with them. Just as your paymasters at the NRA paid you to do.

With the sequence of events now outlined, and the analysis complete, I want to advocate changing the nature of the conversation – from a debate, to a dialogue.

To start the dialogue, I ask the following of 2nd Amendment advocates

What, if anything, do you consider an appropriate policy response to mass shootings in America? That is, what form of firearm regulation policy do you support? I know you support regulation in some form (see point 4 above), so tell me what it is. We can start there and work to common ground.

Note, please, that the question contains no insults, indeed no attack of any kind. It invites 2nd Amendment advocates into the conversation as equals, rather than lecturing them from on high as they often accuse the left of doing. It asks them what they think rather than telling them what to think.

The ‘if anything’ might be seen as slightly loaded, but that gives the extremists the rope with which to hang themselves: anyone who says they support no form of gun regulation, which essentially says that mass shootings are a fact of life in America, can be safely dismissed. Compromise is necessary, but must be done with the reasonable people among those with whom you disagree, so it is first necessary to weed out the crazies.

It is time to stop the debate, and start a dialogue

CA

 

A Formula for Left-Wing Success

In the last post, I defined the formula that Conservatives use, knowingly or otherwise, to achieve the considerable political success we have seen in the last thirty years. Note here that there is a difference between political success and policy success, the latter defined here as policies resounding to the benefit of the wider society rather than a few elites.

In this post, I seek to define a similar formula for Left-Wing success. The Left can achieve political success, despite the efforts of its parties, particularly in Australia and America, to the contrary. We turn to the elements of the formula now.

The first thing you must do is immediately, and irrevocably, ban any and all third-party political donations (that includes unions – we must be consistent). This turns elections from battles of donors to battles of ideas (remember those?). This allows you to focus on the issues, and more importantly focus on the issues unrestrained, that is without any thought as to which interest group (or individual) you might be putting offside. If they cannot fund your opponents, their opinion is, for all intents and purposes, irrelevant. Let them vote or run for office themselves if they seek to influence the discussion. Money must be removed from our political system if ideas are to carry the day. I am aware that the removal of third-party money helps your opponents as well, since they are similarly unrestrained, but your policies are superior to theirs, so this should not matter.

Second, you must fearlessly advocate popular policies, regardless of what the rich, the media or your opponents say. Such a demonstration of political, and policy, conviction can only help your cause. Protection, and indeed extension, of the social safety net (pensions, medicare etc), a green technology revolution, a broadband network for the future rather than one based on archaic technology that is quite literally protected by plastic bags when it rains, taxing the rich and corporations and so on. The rich are likely to protest this latter move, but there is a response to this.

Let them cry persecution, or socialism or whatever other absurd strawman they will concoct to decry policy designed to benefit all of society. Indeed, run with this: expose them (or better yet allow them expose themselves) as the greedy, self-interested and petulant children that they are. You will be able to do this precisely because you are not beholden to them for campaign donations. As you can see, the first pillar frees you up to implement the second.

This response to the rich protesting having to contribute to the society in which they flourished sets the tone for a general response to criticism for the left: your policies resound to the benefit of the wider society – revel in that. Elite protest against popular policies in a democracy is the equivalent of gasoline in a firehose: it will blow up in their faces. You are right on the issues: you serve the people, and your policies benefit them. By definition, there are far fewer wealthy people in a society than there are less well-off. Those numbers are critical: there are fewer wealthy votes than poorer ones, so appeal to the larger demographic by definition will yield success.

I am advocating a return to FDR style social democracy: popular policies funded by taxing, like the rest of us are, those who have achieved wealth in our society. How do I know this method of governance is successful? Simple – FDR was elected – and re-elected – and re-elected – four times in all. It was his time in office that led to the creation of term limits for US Presidents (also a useful admission from the conservatives that they could not compete in the marketplace of ideas and policy). FDR is often called ‘a traitor to his class’ – but his response is equally excellent ‘I welcome their hatred’ – there was a social democrat with political conviction. He had popular policies and pursued them fearlessly, so fearlessly in fact that laws had to be passed in order to prevent him from being re-elected.

The Left is correct on policy – it is high time that this began to yield results in a so-called Democracy.

 

CA