Democratic and Republican Values

So, the new State Republican leader wants to sweep the next partisan elections in Summit County.

Well so do I, and the Summit County Democrats will also be working hard to achieve that goal by registering voters and promoting responsive, efficient local government and Democratic values.

Those Democratic values include support for public education, a clean environment, equal rights and opportunities for all, access to health care for all, and reasonable laws that will keep dangerous weapons out of the hands of felons, terrorists and the mentally unstable. 

Mr. Evans may have an advantage in one respect. His prominence in the payday lending industry has sharpened his ability to raise money from the poor. 

When I was working my way through college in the ‘60s, I worked summers in a couple of textile mills where I and most of the men I worked with earned at or just above the minimum wage. It was there that I had occasion to meet the ‘60s version of payday lenders. We knew them as loan sharks.

The Shark in my place of employment had an assistant. He was about 6’4”, 250 pounds and looked like a former NFL linebacker (in the era before facemasks). He was the enforcer. 

The payday loan industry has upgraded that position. Recent investigation into the Utah Attorney General’s office indicates that the pay day loan industry has been major contributors to and recipients of favorable attention from the current and past AG. Using favorable Utah laws and friends in high places has turned out to be more efficient than old time muscle. 

In their choice of leader, we see the difference between Republican and Democratic values.

Is it time to reconsider the 2nd Amendment?

Roughly four people out of 100,000 are murdered by guns in the United States every year but even more, roughly 10 in 100,000 die from guns from all causes, when including accidents and suicides. These rates are 20 times that of other advanced nations and similar to rates in some of the most lawless places on earth. We lose more Americans to gun violence in 1 month than we have lost in Afghanistan or on D-Day, more than in 2 years than in Vietnam.

It is past time to take strong measures to curb gun violence. Let’s tell congress to reinstate a ban on military-style assault weapons, close loopholes that allow gun buyers to skirt background checks, restrict high-capacity magazines, institute wide ranging buyback programs and make gun trafficking a federal crime. But I would go one radical step further. Perhaps it is time to repeal the 2^nd Amendment.

The 2^nd Amendment was an eminently reasonable doctrine in the frontier society of the 1790’s when a gun was a basic tool of existence and state militias were self armed. Those days are long past. Today, the 2^nd Amendment, by enshrining gun ownership as a “right” elevates the argument in way that makes reasonable controls more difficult to accomplish and encourages an ethos around guns of religious like authority. It makes our world less safe rather than safer. In the words of one writer, “For many, guns have become a dangerous idol in our time. Like all other idols in human history, they have been invested by some with a power they do not possess: to keep us safe in the "wilderness" of life -- safe from all the unknown dangers and unquantifiable threats of life's journey; from all the murderers, rapists, maniacs and terrorists who represent the always-uncontrollable truth of our fragile existence…all the guns in the world will never "fix" the problem of fear. They will not rescue gun-supporters from a cynical view of humanity, of a need to live in constant hyper-vigilance against our fellow human beings. In fact, they will result in the opposite of the intentions of gun-supporters: They will only increase violence, threats, fears and cynicism.”

We have more controls regarding licensing of cars and drivers than we do regarding guns. Both are potentially dangerous instruments and both are involved in around the same number of deaths each year, but gun licensing is far less restrictive and requires less training than driving.

Let’s be clear, by eliminating gun ownership as a “right”, that does not mean that every gun will be confiscated. States and local governments will have different approaches. I don’t see Utah banning guns in my life time, but if other states or localities have electorates who wish to restrict gun ownership, they should be able to do so.

This is my personal opinion and not necessarily reflective of a consensus of the Summit County Democrats. Your feed back is welcome.

Quote attribution - Rabbi Gil Steinlauf, Huffington Post, 1/7/13