Today marks the 10-year anniversary of the Columbine shooting. In terms of dollar-value damages and lives lost, it’s hardly the biggest national tragedy of my lifetime. But it’s done more to shape my consciousness than any war or explosion or plane crash.
Like Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, Columbine’s two perpetrators, I was an angry and miserable teenager. That I was angry and miserable did not cause me to empathize with them, as some deluded souls certainly did, nor did it burden me with any more antipathy than I felt for mass murderers who weren’t close to my age (and, to a far lesser extent, my then-mindset). What their shooting spree did do was illuminate for me where being angry and miserable could take me. I saw their culminating acts of rage and rejection and I saw that I wanted absolutely no part of it whatsoever. It wasn’t enough to make me stop being angry and miserable – that would come later, when graduating high school was within reach – but it was enough for me to stop becoming more angry and more miserable. When tensions got to a certain point, the senselessness and barbarism of that Colorado bloodbath acted, consciously or not, as a powerful check.
I read a column recently which pointed to Columbine as kind of a cultural Rorschach test. Those who don’t like guns will blame guns for the tragedy; those who don’t like violent video games will identify them as the culprit and so on. There are, of course, varying degrees of truth and distortion inherent to all this-finger pointing as well as plenty of blame to go around. What interests me most presently, however, is the need to issue this much blame at all.
There is, I think, a tendency toward disassociation concerning the Harrises and Klebolds of the world. No one wants to see themselves as linked, even on a biological level, to people they despise, so they simply stop seeing them as people at all. Epithets like “animal” and “monster” are applied freely despite the reality that Harris and Klebold (like Hitler and Stalin before them) could not have been anything but human.
The next step in this dissociative process is to look for the breaks – in what way were these freaks’ lives unlike mine? Herein the blamers have a field day. What were the parents like? What kind of media (music, movies, games, etc.) were the perpetrators exposed to? Did they say their prayers and eat their damn vegetables? In other words, what were the exact circumstances that led to this tragic undertaking so that we can isolate them and prevent it from happening again?
This, of course, is an exercise in futility. Just as there is no such thing as a school shooter gene, there is no such thing as a mold from which all school shooters are sprung. There are similarities between shooters to be certain, as well as certain behaviors which may be legitimately construed as warning signs. But consider also the vast differences between the perpetrators. Andrew Kehoe was a school board member enraged by property taxes. Patrick Purdy and Jeff Weise were adherents to extremist political ideologies. Brenda Ann Spencer was female and claimed to have no good reason at all.
It is unlikely that any policy prescription will ever be a curative. Crack down on guns and they’ll build bombs. Cast pre-emptive suspicion on kids who wear black trench coats and you may succeed in allowing jeans-n-T-shirt wearing perpetrators to fly under the radar (to say nothing of unfairly hassling trench coat-wearers who lack any nefarious intent). Ban bullying and hurtful speech and your future terrorists will learn to smile politely.
Though Columbine has gathered a sort of cachet as the definitive school shooting, it is hardly the first incident of its kind. And while it is contextualized as a tragedy from which we all can/should/must learn, many other shootings have followed in its wake. I have every reason to believe more school shootings will happen, as they have been happening. I also have every reason to believe a number of people will scratch their heads and ask “how could this have happened?” and begin the cause-seeking anew. The real lesson of Columbine or any Columbine-like occurrence is that there is no neatly laid-out moralistic conclusion that we all are supposed to arrive at (especially if arriving at said conclusion ignores other conclusions that may happen to be right or useful). If people still feel so helplessly compelled to “do something!” in the aftermath of tragedy, I would say a good dose of common sense and historical perspective never hurt anyone.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Friday, January 30, 2009
Stimulus: The New Patriot Act
In politics, all that’s bad is good again. History repeats itself not because we’re stuck on an unbreakable cycle, but because we fail to recognize (or misdiagnose) patterns. If, for example, we are wronged, we will likely see that wrong quite clearly. But when we wrong others, we may not see it simply because it is by our own hand and targets not our own body. In this way, we risk authorship of our own demise.
For the most recent example of this phenomena, look no further than the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 (and similar post-9/11 legislation). On the surface, the similarities are few – one addresses national security, the other economic stimulus. And I suspect some will take umbrage on equating the curtailment of civil liberties with increases in spending. But for those who can look pass partisan framing, the commonalities are abundant.
Both the PATRIOT Act and the stimulus package predicate their success, to some extent, on fear-mongering. The terrorist attacks of 9/11, while both horrible and horrifying, did not put us on the brink of Armageddon. The lives lost totaled less than two percent of the U.S. population and that is the worst our enemies have been able to muster. Likewise, while our economic picture is bleak, it is not an unprecedented disaster. The Great Depression and the oil crises of the 1970s were more malignant by several measures.
Amid this heightened sense of doom, supporters of both the PATRIOT Act and the stimulus package demanded that immediate action be taken. As Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Washington, noted in Michael Moore’s controversial “Fahrenheit 9/11,” many members of Congress did not have the time to give the PATRIOT Act legislation a thorough reading. Similarly, it would be safe to say that sufficient time has not been allotted for members of Congress to thoroughly digest the 600-plus page stimulus legislation.
Another similarity can be found in the willingness of both PATRIOT backers and stimulus backers to vilify their opponents. Those who questioned or opposed the PATRIOT Act were demagogically denounced as radical or anti-American. In a similar fashion, stimulus backers such as Paul Krugman (who should know better) have referred to stimulus critics and foes as partisan hacks who can be safely ignored. The view that PATRIOT foes recklessly ignored America’s safety has evolved into the view that stimulus foes are recklessly ignoring America’s economic well-being. In both instances, it has proven simpler to smear the critics rather than address or rebut their criticisms.
Interestingly enough for both PATRIOT and stimulus foes, neither piece of legislation is as bad as it could have been. The PATRIOT Act included provisions which sunset, or expire after a certain period of time unless legislation is enacted to extend them. Author James Bovard also states that Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wisconsin, who introduced the bill, worked to eliminate even more intrusive provisions. Similarly, the stimulus package includes tax cuts (which have been known to actually stimulate the economy from time to time) and not nearly enough spending for the likes of Krugman and fellow economist Joseph Stiglitz.
In the years since the PATRIOT Act’s passage, its overreach and invitation for abuse is apparent. In a 2007 audit, the Justice Department found that the FBI used the tools provided by the PATRIOT Act to illegally spy on American citizens. The ostensibly national security-minded PATRIOT Act was also used for purposes decidedly unrelated to national security, such as enforcing copyright infringement and investigating drug traffickers.
Since the stimulus package has yet to be passed by the Senate as of this writing, there can be no ill effects to measure. The legislation does, however, contain a number of components unrelated to stimulating the economy, such as funds for family planning. Given the sheer scope of the money involved (over $800 billion) and the size of the bureaucracies it will be filtered through, misuse and malfeasance seems more a question of “when" and "how" rather than "if."
Of course, there is a learning opportunity here and an easy one at that. The chance to avoid repeating a mistake requires only that we not develop amnesia. But when spend-happy big-government Republicans are suddenly unified in their stimulus opposition on the grounds of fiscal discipline (suppressed titter) and once-skeptical Democrats take up the mantle of heavy-handed toadying yes-men, that may be too much to ask.
For the most recent example of this phenomena, look no further than the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 (and similar post-9/11 legislation). On the surface, the similarities are few – one addresses national security, the other economic stimulus. And I suspect some will take umbrage on equating the curtailment of civil liberties with increases in spending. But for those who can look pass partisan framing, the commonalities are abundant.
Both the PATRIOT Act and the stimulus package predicate their success, to some extent, on fear-mongering. The terrorist attacks of 9/11, while both horrible and horrifying, did not put us on the brink of Armageddon. The lives lost totaled less than two percent of the U.S. population and that is the worst our enemies have been able to muster. Likewise, while our economic picture is bleak, it is not an unprecedented disaster. The Great Depression and the oil crises of the 1970s were more malignant by several measures.
Amid this heightened sense of doom, supporters of both the PATRIOT Act and the stimulus package demanded that immediate action be taken. As Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Washington, noted in Michael Moore’s controversial “Fahrenheit 9/11,” many members of Congress did not have the time to give the PATRIOT Act legislation a thorough reading. Similarly, it would be safe to say that sufficient time has not been allotted for members of Congress to thoroughly digest the 600-plus page stimulus legislation.
Another similarity can be found in the willingness of both PATRIOT backers and stimulus backers to vilify their opponents. Those who questioned or opposed the PATRIOT Act were demagogically denounced as radical or anti-American. In a similar fashion, stimulus backers such as Paul Krugman (who should know better) have referred to stimulus critics and foes as partisan hacks who can be safely ignored. The view that PATRIOT foes recklessly ignored America’s safety has evolved into the view that stimulus foes are recklessly ignoring America’s economic well-being. In both instances, it has proven simpler to smear the critics rather than address or rebut their criticisms.
Interestingly enough for both PATRIOT and stimulus foes, neither piece of legislation is as bad as it could have been. The PATRIOT Act included provisions which sunset, or expire after a certain period of time unless legislation is enacted to extend them. Author James Bovard also states that Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wisconsin, who introduced the bill, worked to eliminate even more intrusive provisions. Similarly, the stimulus package includes tax cuts (which have been known to actually stimulate the economy from time to time) and not nearly enough spending for the likes of Krugman and fellow economist Joseph Stiglitz.
In the years since the PATRIOT Act’s passage, its overreach and invitation for abuse is apparent. In a 2007 audit, the Justice Department found that the FBI used the tools provided by the PATRIOT Act to illegally spy on American citizens. The ostensibly national security-minded PATRIOT Act was also used for purposes decidedly unrelated to national security, such as enforcing copyright infringement and investigating drug traffickers.
Since the stimulus package has yet to be passed by the Senate as of this writing, there can be no ill effects to measure. The legislation does, however, contain a number of components unrelated to stimulating the economy, such as funds for family planning. Given the sheer scope of the money involved (over $800 billion) and the size of the bureaucracies it will be filtered through, misuse and malfeasance seems more a question of “when" and "how" rather than "if."
Of course, there is a learning opportunity here and an easy one at that. The chance to avoid repeating a mistake requires only that we not develop amnesia. But when spend-happy big-government Republicans are suddenly unified in their stimulus opposition on the grounds of fiscal discipline (suppressed titter) and once-skeptical Democrats take up the mantle of heavy-handed toadying yes-men, that may be too much to ask.
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