This is the first entry I’ve written for
this blog in almost six months. The year 2016 has so far been—pardon the
expression—a political shitstorm of nearly dazzling proportions. With one major
party hijacked by a racist, sexist, xenophobic authoritarian as its
presidential nominee, with the other party barely staving off an analogous
populist uprising against its own out-of-touch standard bearer, and with the
death of a Supreme Court Justice conceivably putting all three branches of
government in play come November, things have felt as if they are spinning out
of control. The low, vile brand of politics that has come to dominate the scene
under Donald Trump’s stewardship has only made me more reluctant than I already
would be to wade into what is such a depressing arena. As a libertarian with no
home in either party and a growing fear of what is to come, I’m not even sure
where I stand right now. And so, as I observed earlier, I’ve had nothing to say
for half a year.
And what a terrible moment it is in which
I feel compelled to write again. I could go to great lengths attempting to
write about the horror that occurred in an Orlando nightclub 12 days ago. But how could I ever find the right words? I have
a soul, which is about all anyone should need to feel her heart ache for the
victims of such base violence. Omar Mateen’s actions are, quite simply, hatred
in its most visceral and animalistic form. And I very literally cannot imagine
the grief felt by our nation’s LGBT community, who are all victims of this
tragedy. So, as I said, I won’t spend any more time attempting to do so. There
is no need for me to explain what it is to have a broken heart to so many who
are already heartbroken.
What I want to write about today is how
vitally important it is for us, as Americans, to not let our toxic and
polarized political climate infect our response to this massacre. Granted, this
is manifestly difficult to do. When the hottest of hot button issues—terrorism,
homophobia, and guns—all collide in such a terrible and grisly way, it’s
impossible not to discuss it in political terms. But there’s no need to do what
Donald Trump has done, and take to Twitter
and tell the world that you “Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical
Islamic terrorism.” Nor, for that matter, is it particularly constructive to
follow the lead of so many liberals and blame Republicans right here at home for the carnage wrought by a man who
called 911 to pledge allegiance to ISIS. Omar Mateen, a deranged and bigoted
man who seems to have had many issues—an apparent affection for the Islamic
State’s hateful brand of Islam among them—is not and should not be a prop used
by a presidential nominee to say “I told you so,” or a cudgel with which
adherents of a particular ideology can demonize their rivals.
Yes, Republicans are most certainly
hypocrites for expressing their sympathies for a group of people they have
frequently scorned and ignored. But Democrats are making just as big a mistake
in ignoring the very real specter of radical Islam in what happened in that
nightclub. The American political establishment is refusing steadfastly to
remove the blinders of partisanship and bias and admit that this crime was an
act of both radical Islamic and radical homophobic terror. And it’s worth
noting that those two philosophies are quite compatible. But everyone, left and
right, is too busy pointing fingers to realize the deficits of their own
ideologies.
That brings me to the third polarizing
subject caught up in this tangled mess—guns. I find it very troubling that so
many people (and yes, I’m calling out Democrats in particular here) are
rallying behind a legislative “fix” to this issue that involves denying
American citizens the basic protection of due process. No mass shooting will
ever occur that doesn’t prompt a discussion about gun control, but the Senate’s
most recent push for so-called “no fly, no buy” legislation
is horribly misguided and shows we have learned nothing from the knee-jerk
foolishness of the Bush era. Just as Republicans rushed to curtail civil
liberties via the Patriot Act in response to 9/11, many Democrats (and quite a
few Republicans, as evidenced by Sen. Susan Collins’ bipartisan gun bill), are
willing to go a similar route in the wake of Orlando. These proposals—Sen.
Dianne Feinstein’s amendment that would bar gun sales to anyone on the
government’s terrorist watch list and Sen. Collins’ proposal that would do the
same for those on the no-fly list—are not only dangerous in their scope, but
also of dubious constitutionality.
The 5th Amendment to the
Constitution prohibits the federal government from depriving any citizen of
“life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” And denying someone
the right to purchase a firearm based on something like the no-fly list goes
directly against that principle. The no-fly list maintains virtually no
pretense of due process—people are added to the list based on broad, vague
criteria, receive no notice that they are on the list, and have no standardized
means of redress if they believe they have been wrongfully added to it. It is
an arbitrary, blunt tool that easily can and has led to false positives and for
which our government faces zero accountability. Even the ACLU has come out in
opposition to both Sen. Feinstein’s and Sen. Collins’ bills, and they do a fine
job of explaining why. This, mind you, from
an organization that believes “that the right to own and use guns is not
absolute or free from government regulation.”
If some within our government (and our
public) are inclined to respond to Orlando with a call for gun control
measures, then that is their prerogative. There are many perfectly reasonable
policy angles from which to approach this threat. The utmost care must be
taken, however, to ensure that any policy prescription we champion be rooted in
the bedrock principles of liberty and transparency that make our country great.
We cannot fall into the age-old trap of sacrificing our freedoms for a false
sense of security. And we absolutely must not let our debate over these
policies devolve into the infantile finger-pointing and political stunts that
have dominated this election season. What happened in Orlando was sadly
familiar, and we would be wise to remember that the senseless hate that was put
on display that day is just as much akin to what we saw in Charleston as it is
to what we saw in San Bernadino. I don’t pretend to have any idea how we can
combat such cancerous radicalization, but I do know one thing for sure: neither
looking to place blame on bogeymen across the political aisle or at the feet of
an entire religion is going to get us there. We all need to stop trying to fit
this tragic tale into our own preconceived narratives about what is wrong with
this country and realize that maybe, just maybe, this problem isn’t as simple
as we all want it to be.
