Archive: Opinions

It seems now that we have been surrounded, inundated, drowning in nothing but impeachment 'news'. I'm just as drawn, as appalled, by the barrage of this 'news' like an out of control fire hose, of the latest revelations, tweets and conjectures on this whole American mess we call, with a wry snicker, politics. Maybe not 'politics as usual', certainly with a sardonic edge and masochistic flair that only the American media, and a jaundiced public can imbue.

I'm searching my memory for 1973-1974 in the Nixon drama, but that particular year doesn't seem to fit neatly into 'been there, done that' scenario. The circumstances, the players, the crimes, and in particular my own return to normalcy during that period, returning from a year in a combat zone, won't give me a comfortable feel for any current similarities, any patterns, any expected results. Dark, untrod territory, I surmise, especially since it ended in resignation, not a trial.

And the Clinton debacle isn't even comparable, although there still seemed to be a smidgen of civility remaining in 1999. Respectability? With the extra-marital ugliness and sordidness, not to mention prurient interest as defined by the Supreme Court in obscenity cases? Please, we seem to be sinking deeper into a humorless vortex where the rest of the world gasps, turns their collective heads in embarrassment, and our last friends, the state-less Kurds, are betrayed.

So, after this rant, I'm asking you, dear reader, to turn to an ongoing and deeply troubling reality in America that always slips to a back page until it rears its ugly head: guns, violence and America's ongoing and expanding civil war. Maybe now, while much of our country shrugs about impeachment (and my guess is that much of America still thinks, mistakenly, that the House's 'impeachment vote' will rid the country of Trump) that I would like to propose something about gun violence that I've been mulling for awhile, and appears to have achieved reasonable approval from a few important friends.

Here's the premise: as long as the arguments about weaponry in the hands of private citizens and the violence with that weaponry assaults our schools, churches, synagogues, mosques, department stores and streets, centers around the Second Amendment, we will continue to be, as a country, rent in two irreconcilable camps. Let's call these camps, simply, gun rights and gun control. Now, each camp has its spectrum of advocates, from those like the Democratic candidate who said recently "Hell, yeah, we're coming for your guns" to those on the opposite end of the spectrum, like the guy in California who was found to have over a thousand (legally owned, mind you) guns in his home. All shades and variations of belief, but in essence two camps who will never, ever, agree to agree, or agree to disagree, as long as the basic argument is the right to own a gun, a la Second Amendment.

So, I said to myself, what would happen if I use the maxim that I have quoted in this column more than once? To wit, Einstein's idea that you cannot solve a problem 'with the same mind that created it.' Take the insoluble argument out of the realm of the Second Amendment, and place the argument, ...where?

Let's look at a couple of relevant issues surrounding the law and getting us away from the Second Amendment, thus opening up a potential new venue for discussion.

Massachusetts: Remember a story about a young woman who told her boyfriend to kill himself, and he did? She was tweeting him while he self-asphyxiated in a truck with exhaust gas, and when he tweeted to her that he was scared and exiting the fume-filled truck, she tweeted: "Get back in there". He died, and prosecutors tried her by jury for involuntary manslaughter. She was convicted as an accomplice to the suicide, given a fifteen month prison sentence and her case is currently on appeal while she is incarcerated. Can you guess what her defense was, and is? Conviction was a violation of her First Amendment right to free speech!

"New York Cracks Down on Sites That Sell Gun Parts" is the recent headline. The order was issued to sixteen websites that 'manufacture and/or sell firearms and firearm components' necessary to build an 'assault weapon', according to the NY Attorney General's office. The order accuses these websites of fraudulent business practices. Although not specifically stated, there is no doubt that the AG's office feels it has a legal right to make an attempt to shut down these sites, if possible, in addition to mounting fines. You can bet that this action would bring about First Amendment lawsuits, abridging freedom of speech on the internet. So...

This Item: Wall Street Journal headline: "The Toxic Online World Where Mass Shooters Thrive".

It turns out (perhaps not so surprisingly to most of us) that there is a vast underground on the so-called 'dark web' that caters to violence, hatred, xenophobic and racist hatred. Such sites as 4chan, 8chan, and others identified on virtual private networks (VPN) exist with apparently no control over the worst screed, the most homophobic and xenophobic content that can be imagined. These sites are where the mass killers and their acolytes and cheerleaders gravitate to. As examples of this, the Wall Street Journal found that posts on these sites encouraged attacks against mosques, synagogues and immigrants. The numbers of fatalities in mass shootings are celebrated by its denizens as 'high scores'.

It appears that several of the recent mass killers were quite familiar with these sites, reached through VPN and 'dark web', and frequently visited them, although no proof has been found of actual communications between these killers (conforming to the 'lone wolf' concept and characterization of these demented and tormented men).

Another site, Endchan, was the source of a post by the Oslo mosque shooter, and a letter sent from jail by the New Zealand shooter showed up on Endchan as well, warning of 'more bloodshed to come'.

It appears that the shooters and their cheerleaders are trying to 'one-up' each other and use these sites to glorify the shooters as 'martyrs', 'saints', and other quasi-religious characterizations.

The Norwegian neo-Nazi who killed 77 people in 2011 (mostly teenagers) is lionized on 8chan where his 1500 page screed is considered a touchstone and is frequently shared (no matter how often taken down) on the dark web and virtual private networks.

4chan claims 20 million users, and it is estimated that 8chan has 10 to 20 million visits a month, where there have been attempts (one successful, so far) to live stream a mass killing as it occurred.

So, back to the argument which seems to result in two camps who cannot see or hear the other 'side'. Suppose we took the argument out of the scope/realm of the 2nd Amendment, and used the 1st Amendment as a basis for rational and reasoned discussion about our gun violence epidemic.

To wit: There is a lot more common ground for agreement between Americans on First Amendment issues. Not perfect, but a solid footing of belief and agreement. We differ on 'shades' of protection for freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of association, but these limitations have been generally accepted by Americans as necessary and proper. As an example (one of many possible) a great Supreme Court quote on freedom of speech was that 'it did not give one the right to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater'.

There are many more examples generally accepted of limitations placed over the years on 1st Amendment freedoms, and these are always very narrowly defined and have not impinged on our greatest freedoms, the hallmarks of our free society, which are speech (within reason) the press (discounting libel) religion and association.

What I think we may be looking at here is not limiting the right to own a gun or the right to safety on the streets, in schools, in places of worship or commerce, but taking a small step to addressing these crazies who address and encourage each other on the web to the insane, the irrational, the criminal and violent while spreading hate and vitriol against everyone and everything they consider an 'enemy', claiming the right to 'free speech' on the internet?

In other words, can't we abridge the 1st Amendment rights just a bit, not by shutting down sites that condone and publish violence and hate, or stopping open communication, but by addressing this 'dark web' and 'virtual private network' and shutting them down as agents/tools of terror? Aren't these the 'tools' of violence, as dangerous and explosive as the bump stock or the altered gun receiver, the virtual megaphones of hate, the echo chambers of violence and death? The networks that espouse and permit this violent trash would, I would guess, have no place to hide.

In another sense, 'jamming' them in an electronic warfare sense, making them unable to function, unable to broadcast, impossible to be reached by even the most sophisticated hackers. I am no expert, here, obviously, but to mash up a frequent trope, if we can go to the moon, why can't we make virtual private network and dark web unreachable? Thus, shutting down a tool of the violence. Not taking away guns, not screaming about constitutional rights. Just, simply, eliminating a source of the violence as a first step. And, a step we can probably agree on, allowing, eventually the Supreme Court to decide if this is a legal restriction, a legal sense of 'declaring war' on this ruination and despicable use of 'free speech'.

I know that virtual private networks are critical to financial institutions, especially in emergencies, and there could easily be made exceptions and highly regulated rules for their usage by legitimate entities for security purposes. I worked with the NSA, and I know how encryption can be made available to help this work.

But when virtual private networks are advertising on radio (curiously I have only heard their advertising on AM radio talk shows) to 'protect your privacy' you know there is an awful lot of this stuff going on.

Again, I am not advocating shutting down individual sites, or stifling speech. I am saying that we can force the bad stuff, the horrible hatred, into the open air, the sunshine, where it can be tracked (which is virtually impossible presently) or perhaps even wither when its true content and bile can be seen, read and heard by respectable Americans.

My libertarian sense rebels at the preceding, but I am not advocating a restriction of rights, although you can be sure that if Congress does get the guts (ha...) to try to craft such a bill (no rules from the FCC, but a real effort to craft a law that can be tried in the courts) that restricts or eliminates VPN and eliminates the dark web as a terrorist threat that court challenges will ensue and a million trolls will do their crying best to circumvent it. But if we take away the hiding place, utilizing the First Amendment to restrict dark web denizens from yelling 'Fire!' in a crowded theater (in the interest of what must be termed the public good) maybe we have taken a concerted and community minded step to a small but significant agreement on how to battle this soul eating monster of hate and violence.

Look at speech and its debilitating effect upon our society and its would-be killers, and when we agree on a path, then perhaps we might find a way out of these two camps that are arguing with no possible agreement. Let's find out how we agree, and this is possible with a discussion of our greatest amendment, our greatest freedom.

Is it practical or rational? Let me know what you think. I'm listening, and so, we would hope, is the rest of the tired world.