Why I Won't "Leave the Country" if "X" Gets Elected

My older son, Joe, is, as all young people must, finding his intellectual way into the world. He is extremely inquisitive, very philosophical and he is creative in ways that make me exceedingly proud. But, as a young man, he is, of course, apt to latch on to things he has heard that stir passion in him. The other day, he echoed the ubiquitous "If Trump wins, we should leave this country."

It just so happens that this was said two days ago as we were walking away from Sankaty Lighthouse in 'Sconset, on Nantucket. Only a few minutes earlier, we had passed "Footlight," the home where my favorite writer, John Steinbeck, had written East of Eden. I had completely forgotten he had written the book on Nantucket until the tour guide pointed out the house. Of course, my heart leaped with delight and I quickly took a blurred picture as we drove past...

...but only a few minutes later, there was my son talking about "leaving the country." The proximity -- in not only inches and feet but in my heart -- to my most beloved writer caused a discordant resonance for me. My son had rung a bell that a thousand people a day ring...but this time, it sounded broken...it rattled, like I would imagine the cracked Liberty Bell would. And like the Liberty Bell (rung-again) would, it made me feel pride in a country with a deep history and with a roll-call of fine human beings who did things both great and unknown.

I saw Steinbeck, silhouetted in a window in Footlight and recording his self-doubt (someday they will figure out I am not as good as they say I am) in his journal as he wrote East of Eden. I saw Lincoln in dark meetings, his soft voice urging his cabinet to fight for the Union above all else. I saw a simple, courageous man from Philadelphia, in 1866, driving his family in a covered wagon, out past the Mississippi, to claim the land offered by the Homestead Act (an act that encouraged African Americans and single women to apply, by the way). I saw Aaron Copeland at the piano adding notes to his manuscript for "Appalachian Spring"; Elie Wiesel exorcising his demons at the typewriter; Dr. King, his tie slack, his eyes watering, pondering the next line of a famous speech. I saw boys from my generation playing dusty baseball on a weedy infield on a summer day just for the joy of it -- no thought of scholarships; no travel teams to keep up with; no pitching and hitting lessons on the schedule -- just playing until the light was too low, a prelude to the night's dreams of the big leagues. I thought of newly-married couples, with no money, making love because they had to; because love and family were a need, not a business proposition. I saw a line of heroes and inspirations: Leonard Slatkin with his baton; Barber penning the notes of his adagio; Mike Schmidt, confident and almost defiant at the plate; Vinnie Colaiuta in complete command the drumkit; my own father sitting center-chair in a big band with his magical silver trumpet; Dr. Robert Ryan, his voice cracking with emotion as he read Keats to our little graduate seminar class; my wife, Karen, exercising every single dark morning at 5:30, to stay strong; my sons growing into fine, sensitive and moral young men...

...I saw all of this as my son and I walked a gravel path under a hot blue sky, just after I heard the words: "leave this country." And it occurred to me: hell, no.

I told Joe that I am too proud of the real great people of this country to abandon it, either physically or mentally, just because of the behavior of high-profile creeps. I'll never give up hope for America. There are too many good people living good, just and sincere lives, who are the blood in the veins. The President is not the country. The loud-mouthed flag-wavers are not the country. The Tweeters and Facebookers who spend their time spreading their political agenda and un-researched claims are not the country.

We are the country. "We the people" -- the ones going to work for others or for themselves; the ones cutting grass on Saturday; the ones trying to get better at golf or music or writing or dancing or fishing or at just being people; the ones who are trying to teach their kids to be good men and women; the ones who have no time for politics and angry online arguments; the ones who would rather read a book than a meme; the ones who walk their dogs, rain or shine; the ones who stand comically in bathrooms with their spouses, brushing their teeth before bed -- we are the ones who make this country what it is.

No politician; no president, good or bad, can take that away from us or "bring it back" to us. I understand how those in charge can change our circumstances, but they don't shape our American-ness.

I have very little respect for many politicians, but they are just some of the many pimples on the beautiful face of a great country. Yeah, the Liberty Bell is cracked. It has to be. It tells the truth in its silent sound.

My son's response? "Good point, dad. Can we get lunch soon?"

Doubt and the Human Spirit

I realize that, most of the time, when I write things with the purpose of changing people's minds, that I will fail. Those who like what I have to say will praise me; those who don't will generally ignore me. I'm just not very influential.

But, at the same time, if I didn't want to have an effect, I would just keep my writing bound to a journal. Why put it up online? Why publish? Clearly, I want (need?) to affect people in some way.

If my hopes are too high, I am bound for disappointment. (And they are always too high.) In a way, now that I think about it, having really high hopes as a writer pretty much amounts to narcissism. To hope is to assume that I have something worthwhile to say. Who, exactly, do I think I am?

I think, though, that I have found a realistic, non-conceited, practical goal as a writer -- as a teacher, even. I think a worthy goal is to just try to make people less sure of themselves; to make them doubt their hardened concepts...

It seems to me that doubt, to the human spirit, is as water to the plant.

Too many people are too sure of themselves. Only two results can come of two groups of people who are completely sure of themselves: dangerous clashes or turned backs.

But I'm tired. Whatever the reason for having tried so hard to affect people -- vanity or altruism -- it has made me very tired. I feel like like Jem, after having seen the racism in his town. He says this to, Scout, in To Kill a Mockingbird:

"Scout, I'm beginning to understand something. I think I'm beginning to understand why Boo Radley's stayed shut up in the house all this time... it's because he wants to stay inside."

I'd better either shut up about things and go all Boo Radley or keep my expectations low. At the very least, "affects" and "effects" aside, maybe I could just introduce a little beauty, from time to time, in a very, very ugly world. The human spirit can be such a light. Just lift away the shade and it can chase off a deed-dark forest full of demons...

But the shade does need to be lifted. Another worthy goal. I hope. 

Beauty on the Boardwalk

My family made a quick trip to the Jersey shore a few weeks ago. While we were there, I saw a beautiful display of human goodness. It wasn't what you think -- not some kind of gesture of charity; nothing about old ladies crossing busy streets; not a hero jumping in to the fracas to defend a lady in distress. This was more about three teenaged kids who sort of just...stood there.

My boys were using the restroom on the boardwalk and I was waiting outside and there were three early teens in front of me -- maybe fifteen -- a boy and two girls. The boy was skinny and shirtless, with blond/brown hair and two earrings; a handsome young man who did a lot of smiling. One of the girls was blonde -- his sister, maybe? -- and she wore a white cover-up over her bathing suit. The other girls had dark hair in a ponytail. and she wore a pink cover-up. They were either close friends or cousins. They had that blend of closeness and comfort.

The girls were as beautiful as the boy was handsome. Youth almost always equals beauty, but these kids were attractive enough to have had "attitudes" about it. Somehow, though, their smiles seemed to negate any possibility of narcissism. They were not too cool to smile, as many young people seem to be.

They were approached by an Asian boy wearing one of those string backpacks and his friend, a Irish-looking lad, who a wore a matching pack. The packs had crosses on them.

"Hi," said the Asian kid to the three teens. "Can I ask you a question?"

I don't know how it goes around the rest of the world, but in New Jersey, on the boardwalk, that pretty much means you are about to be accosted by a Christian on a mission. I'm a man of faith, but of a faith that is based on private meditation and private prayer. I shy away from flagrant displays of faith. Flagrant displays of faith strike me, I might add, as fundamentally wrong...maybe not wrong for everyone but truly against what feels right for me.

As a kid, I used to figure out ways to freak these teen crusaders for Jesus out. I'd tell them I worshiped Beelzebub or that I was a warlock or that I was a gay Zoroastrian who dabbled in voodoo on the weekends. Sometimes I would flat-out tell them to get out of my face; I had my own Catholic faith and didn't need to be them telling me it was not good enough. (Back in my teen days, a friend of mine once did all the work by saying, "Go away. You people are more annoying than burlap underwear." [Which, I think you will agree, would be pretty darned annoying.])

But these three happy teens were better than I ever was.

"Can I ask you a question," the Asian kid said.

"Just a few minutes," the Irish kid said.

"Sure," the blonde girl said. Her friends smiled.

"It's like a quiz," the Christian lad said. "Number one. On a scale of one to ten, how curious would you say you are about knowing God?

"Um," the girl said, biting her lower lip in earnest thought. "Ten, I guess."

"Ten," said the other two.

"Oh...okay. Great," said the quizzing boy, obviously surprised by these nice kids in a day strung with kids like me. "Great. So, then, on a scale of one to ten, how much would you say God loves you?"

"Oh...that's def'nly a ten," said the skinny boy, his forehead creasing a bit with concentration. The girls nodded, smiling with sincere eyes. "Ten."

This went on for about three minutes and they answered question after question in the same way. The Christian boys handed them some brochures and left the three friends in peace. What I expected next were rolling eyes and crumpling brochures. Surely these kids were just being polite. They'd start making fun of the two boys as soon as they were out of sight.

But, no. You could tell from their conversation that these kids were not particularly religious, but they showed no sign of disdain. The girls had nowhere to put their brochures, and one of them said, "I don't just want to throw it out..." The boy offered to put them in his backpack (his had no cross on it) and they did and the three walked off to enjoy the rest of their day.

These kids struck me as so heart-breakingly nice that it made me well up a bit. There was no cynicism; there was no judgment; there was no stereotypical teenaged role-playing; no air of intellectual superiority.

As a teacher of high school students, I often find myself noticing the best in humanity. Sure, I get frustrated, but, in the end, I find that working with kids makes me feel better about the future. These three moved me with their sincerity, their openness and their manners. They were beautiful humans.

Thoughts on Gun Control, Part 2: The Line

In our last exciting episode, we dealt with the idea that the Second Amendment might need rethinking, based on the change in weapons and circumstances. In this sense, we agreed with probably the most insightful of the Founding Fathers, Jefferson, who thought that, "with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times." Therefore, we are not slinging poo at the revered and sacred big cheeses of the Revolution for thinking their buildings might need a little renovation...

My readers might disagree with that notion, and, of course, they are free to. But we all might consider one thing: that we certainly all agree that there are certain weapons we would not want in the hands of any particular private citizen...a nuclear bomb, for instance.

Somewhere between this...

Right? Should my neighbor be able to rig his house with a nuclear explosive that would go off if someone were to trip a wire near the front door? Of course not, right? Too many people could die.

What about a setup that would protect his loved ones and property in the form of a series of pipes in the front lawn that would pump VX nerve gas into the air in the event of an intruder? Of course not -- too many could die.

What about those who have to travel city streets alone at night? Should it be legal to carry a flame thrower for self-defense? Ridiculous, right? The whole city could burn down.

This only all goes to prove that we all agree that there should be limits on the ways in which we can protect ourselves. Anyone who thinks that we should be allowed to defend ourselves in the ways listed above is an idiot. I say this with confidence, because I believe that any idiot who would disagree with me here is someone I would rather stop reading my blog.

So, carrying things further, in modern times, we have a vast variety of guns and rifles and other assorted personal weapons that range vastly in their ability to inflict damage on the enemy. I am not a gun expert, so I am not going to propose the specific "line" at which we should cut off John Q. Public from his self-defense. I just want it to be clear that any rational being would agree that we do need to draw some line when it comes to what sort of weapons we should allow the average person to own, at least when we expand to weapons of mass destruction or to ones that could cause the death of too many, especially the innocent.

Is it ridiculous to draw a line? -- to say how much firepower is too much firepower, even in the hands of a law-abiding citizen?  I don't think so.

I do believe that average citizen should have access to guns, but I think the kind of guns does need to be limited. I'm not sure at what level I think this should be done, to be honest with you -- probably somewhere between a shotgun and short of a Gatling gun in a second floor bedroom window seems right to me -- but it is as worthy of consideration as it would be with any weapon. The absurd examples above serve only to prove the point that, at some level, the ways in which we defend ourselves needs to be limited.

It is ludicrous and dangerous to suggest that guns be outlawed altogether. The last thing we need is a country in which the government has all the guns and the people have none; bad idea, and the Founding Fathers agreed.

It could be argued that if we don't have the best firepower, we could never mount a revolution, at need. I disagree with that -- the Patriots in the 1770s were outgunned, but they found a way. It seems illogical to me to prepare for something as unlikely (but, admittedly, possible) as a revolution by arming ourselves to an extent that, in the process of waiting for this possible new revolution, we make it easier for lunatic after lunatic to mount widescale attacks on random groups and killing hundreds if not thousands. Since 1966, alone, 869 people have been killed in mass shootings, and there has not been one revolution. Mass shootings are a pressing problem. (I know, I know -- the weapons in these killings have ranged from handguns to rifles to machine guns...that's why we need to think it over -- which ones does it make the most sense to keep off of the streets? Not all of them, for sure. I want to remain clear about that.)

But for heaven's sake, people, please stop arguing that "making things illegal won't stop them from happening." I can point to about two-hundred memes to this effect that have made me drastically angry. Making rape illegal has not stopped it from happening, but no one is proposing that we should just lift the laws off of the books because making laws has not solved the problem...

So, the question becomes whether limiting the kinds of gun we can own is a violation of the amendment's idea that the right to have guns "shall not be infringed." (In my previous piece, you can see, I hope, that when it comes to variety of weapons, the writers of the amendment could not have had "limitation" in mind, so it becomes a non-issue).

When the law limits the kinds of weapons we are allowed to have, it is not precluding the ownership of guns, in general. In this way, I don't see regulation of what is legal and what is not legal to own as a conflict with the amendment.

That said, I will be so bold as to submit a revision of the Second Amendment and to present it cloudward to Mr. Jefferson, for his consideration:

Protection of self and family being a fundamental right of every human, the right the people to keep and bear arms within a reasonable scope with respect to the safety of the citizenry at large, shall not be infringed. 

Sure, that leaves a big question mark in the air: What does "within a reasonable scope" mean? That's what judges and government representatives are for: to argue about and to decide these things. It won't be an easy road, but I think we should keep up the tug-of-war of the legal and governmental processes.

....and this?

It also shifts from the keeping of a free state to personal safety, eliminating the Militia piece, But I think most people are more focused on personal safety these days and if everryone is allowed to have a weapon, a militia could still be formed at need, so it works out in the end.

In the end, I just want us all to agree that limitations on the weapons the average citizen can own is a good idea when it comes to nukes and nerve agents; that limiting works from the top down. I just want us to discuss the line. Why would it stop at the most powerful and destructive hand-held weapon ever made? If it shouldn't (and it shouldn't) then the debate is over what is safe enough, but still lethal enough to offer personal defense. And let's argue about that and keep adjusting and adjusting and adjusting, as time goes on, as Thomas Jefferson knew we would need to do.

Thoughts on Gun Control, Part 1: Underestimating the Founding Fathers

In Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, one of the characters, Boromir, looks at "the one ring" -- a magical ring with the power to destroy the entire world -- and he says:

"Is it not a strange fate that we should suffer so much fear and doubt for so small a thing?"

I think much the same thing when I look at the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America -- that loftiest of lofty American documents... All we get is this; the amendment in its entirety:

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Is it not a strange fate that this little sentence has one group in their country at the throats of another? Yet, there it is. 

Short as it is, it is not without difficulties. People latch onto the idea that "the right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed." What they ignore (often for the purpose of creating the sentence in their own image) is that the word "infringed" can have two shades of meaning. One can read this section of the amendment as either: 1) no one shall take away the right of people to own guns or, 2) no one shall limit or encroach upon ownership of guns in any way (i.e. not even limiting the kinds of guns owned).

Either way, people need to be allowed, according to the amendment, to own guns. That's clear.

The problem is that the second part could be interpreted to mean that there should be no limit on the kinds of guns owned. I would argue, though, that this is not something that could have been on the minds of the Founding Fathers. During the whole of the 18th century, the only firearms available were blunderbusses, pistols, muskets and rifles. The fastest of the fast could manage three shorts per minute with a musket, which needed the completion of a twenty-some-step process. In other words, there was no limiting of firepower to be done, unless done to minute and inconsequential differences. There was pretty much one kind of weapon available to the average American citizen: a pistol, musket or rifle that could fire very limited projectiles.

Therefore, I don't think it was possible that they were using the word "infringed" to mean "limited". What they meant was that no one shall stop the people from owning the available guns. Which guns they would own is not an issue, as it is today, so basing any pro-gun, modern arguments on the lack of limitation in this 18th century document is invalid. 

I'm going a step further than most who argue that "they didn't mean automatic weapons" by saying, they simply could not have even meant weapons of more than their contemporary limited shot capacity. (And as far as firepower, even if the average person bought himself a cannon, he still could not pull off the  kind of carnage of our modern mass murderers. In short, if guns were not limited, the American of 1787 [the year of the Constitution] it would neither have decreased nor increased the average American's ability to defend himself. 

Working backward, there is also still the issue of the reason the Second Amendment gives for the need of citizens to bear arms: the maintaining of "a well-regulated Militia." The writers of the Constitution were not even necessarily addressing personal protection with the amendment; they were referring to the ability of a state (or the State?) to fight for its own freedom, as the Revolutionaries had done, against oppression. 

The militias had figured heavily into the Revolution. The Founding Fathers were thinking of keeping us safe from mistreatment by government when they drafted the Second Amendment. This is tricky.

Today, the legality of militias varies from state to state. In some, they are illegal; in others, they are allowed, but carefully regulated. But a militia implies that the states might have to fight against...what? Other states? Didn't 600,000 people die in the Civil War to keep the states unified? If it is against governmental oppression that we establish militias, then...o.k. But is that really what gun advocates are really fighting for? I don't think so, except in isolated cases... In short, I think the militia part of the amendment is not a relevant point anymore.

What? "How can I say that," you ask? The Constitution should be inviolate? -- unchanged? Strangely, Thomas Jefferson did not think so. He thought that sometimes things need to change as the world around us (and inside us) changes. In my opinion, we need to rethink the Second Amendment -- not spit in its face, but consider what its modern equivalent is. We should be able to defend ourselves, but, at what cost (more of that in Part 2)? Anyway, Jefferson is pretty clear, here:

“I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and Constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.”

So, no more trumpeting about disrespect for the Founding Fathers' views. The biggest disrespect we can show them is to underestimate their vision. One of the "new truths" we have to live with today is that, within a few minutes, someone can go from the gun shop into a crowded place and kill dozens of innocent people with one gun. Jefferson would want that problem dealt with, I think. Let's not insult him further. He saw this coming. He was anything but barbarous.