Uvalde - the followup

[Rigby5]

I can't deny they are concurrent.
I cannot prove cause and effect.
The accuracy of the cause and effect connection?

usurpation
noun
1: the act of usurping : unauthorized arbitrary assumption and exercise of power especially as infringing on others' rights
dictatorial usurpation of Congressional power—Current History
specifically : the illegal seizure of sovereign power
—usually used with of or sometimes with on or upon
2: an act or an instance of encroachment
protect the executive branch from any legislative usurpations—Sidney Hyman

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/usurpation

The source of our rights is not government. Your Jeffersonian view that rights are God-given is enumerated in TJ's DOI, and is enshrined there.


Reports of it may not have showed up on your evening news TV broadcast.
Inability to name such example may result from limitations in news reporting rather than our history of homicide.
And when did auto-loading firearms proliferate? In 1918 the most common rapid fire gun may have been the double-barrel shotgun.


Let us presume there are both governance, and sociological / cultural aspects of that.
We may have the slimmest rudimentary control over governance. But our culture careens substantially independently.

"There is no law that says we have to go to work every day and follow our employer's orders. Legally there is nothing to prevent us from going to live in the wild like primitive people or from going into business for ourselves. But in practice there is very little wild country left, and there is room in the economy for only a limited number of small business owners. Hence most of us can survive only as some one else's employee."
Excerpt from Unabomb Manifesto: author convict Theodore Kaczynski; sentenced to lifetime imprisonment without possibility of parole

Long in our past there were rumors of "mountain men", individuals that lived in undesirable locations, subsisting in isolation.
As Kaczynski and R5 observe, "in practice there is very little wild country left" "restrictions on living on "public" land" R5 #258
I don't mean to suggest there would be a massive stampede for the treeline, if any such territory were available. BUT !
Perhaps merely the knowledge that it is possible may be enough of an emotional relief to pacify the zeitgeist.

I agree that my thesis is unprovable.
But it is what Karl Marx predicted in 1830.
Which is that factory mass production would eliminate cottage industries and turn us all into serfs like in the silent movie, "Metropolis".
It did not happen as badly or quickly as Marx predicted due to Teddy Roosevelts antitrust campaigns and unions.

There are lots of things that could reduce violence.
Like public day labor, public minimal housing, better public job training, etc.
We saw programs like that during the Great Depression.
We should still have programs like that even more now.

It is just my opinion that human nature is social, so when there is an increase in crime and violence, it is wrong to blame human nature.

 

[sear]

"Marx predicted in 1830." R5 #261

I wouldn't give him a no bell prize for it. But indeed society evolves.

"Which is that factory mass production would eliminate cottage industries and turn us all into serfs like in the silent movie, "Metropolis"." R5 #261

Fine. BUT !
Fritz Lang's Metropolis was dystopian. I consider it a caution of a risk, not a prediction of a certitude.
Henry Ford's reality seems substantially more benevolent to me. $FIVE $DOLLARS A DAY !
Ford realized if he paid his workers enough, they could afford to buy his cars.
He did.
They did.

"Every Presidential campaign is an epidemic of economic illiteracy, but this year is a particularly egregious case when talking about the manufacturing [jobs] crisis. What that means is manufacturing employment as a percentage of total employment is declining. True. [It] Has been for 60 years. We make steel today, we made steel 20 years ago. We just make 1/3 more steel today with 2/3 fewer steel works who have gone on to other points of employment. If we have a crisis in manufacturing ... we have a calamity in agriculture, because in 1940 19% of our employers were in agriculture, 4% by 1970, 2% today. That's a triumph of American productivity, not a problem." George Will

I'd like to deliberately exclude any impression of objectivity here. I offer the following only as subjective impression.
My impression is modern workers are:
- paid better
- perform less arduous labor *
- receive superior benefits including healthcare, retirement, etc
- live substantially longer, safer, more comfortable lives.

"It did not happen as badly or quickly as Marx predicted due to Teddy Roosevelts antitrust campaigns and unions." R5 #261

Marx static-modeled a dynamic system.

"There are lots of things that could reduce violence.
Like public day labor, public minimal housing, better public job training, etc.
We saw programs like that during the Great Depression.
We should still have programs like that even more now." R5 #261

I've wondered whether instead of outlawing sleeping on a park bench whether it would make more sense to guarantee employment.
Needn't be lavish, but sufficient to keep them off the sidewalks. In President Clinton's phrasing, a hand up, not a hand-out.
- careful - If we did that it might reduce U.S. military enlistment rates. A memorable line from the Richard Gere's An Officer And A Gentleman,
Louis Gossett Jr. character Sgt. Emil Foley was stressing the officer candidate, taunting Gere's character to quit.
Gere's line: I got nowhere else to go !
Sadly, desperation is a ruthless motivator.

There was an anti-welfare meme showing the back yard of an urban slum, caption: 2 ways to enslave, work 'em without pay, and pay 'em without work

The proverb warns that "You should not bite the hand that feeds you." But maybe you should, if it prevents you from feeding yourself. psychiatrist Thomas Szasz

"It is just my opinion that human nature is social, so when there is an increase in crime and violence, it is wrong to blame human nature."R5 #261

Being social & being non-criminal and or non-violent are not necessarily mutually exclusive. We respond to stimuli. Don't believe it? Ask Pavlov's dog.

* My personal experience is, the better the job pays the safer, the more comfortable, the better benefits ...