AJC.com > Opinion > Opinion Talk > Archives > 2008 > April
April 2008
New interpretation of voting rights
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Ultra-conservatives and a few other fringe activists have come up with a new interpretation of voting rights. They claim there is NO right to vote in the U.S. Constitution. Who knew?
It’s right there in the 15th, 19th and 26th amendments to the Constitution, which declare that the “right to vote” shall not be infringed because of race, sex or age. If there were no right to vote, it couldn’t be infringed upon, could it? These must be folks who believe that only a select few — people like them — should be allowed to have the franchise.
Read Cynthia Tucker’s entire column
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Should Congress get involved with BCS?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A congressman from Hawaii wants the NCAA to reform the way it picks the national football champion- a method that some would argue robbed the Georgia Bulldogs of the title this year. Read the column here.
Should Congress get involved? Do we need a true playoff system? Were the Dogs robbed?
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Restaurant Owners: No Guns on Menu
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Ronald A. Wolf, executive officer of the Georgia Restaurant Association urges Gov. Sonny Perdue to veto legislation allowing patrons to pack heat in restaurants, saying the public fears this measure, restaurant owners don’t want it and the provision prohibiting armed customers from buying alcohol would be difficult to enforce. Read column here. Is he right?
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Jekyll Island’s Future: Let’s Map It
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Developers in the next 30 days are expected to unveil the latest plans for state-owned Jekyll Island, amid growing concerns that the plans for the condo-hotel-retail project will encroach on a maritime swamp forest. Read story.
“Maritime forests are extremely rare and getting more so all the time,” said David Kyler, executive director of the nonprofit Center for a Sustainable Coast. “We don’t think any of it is expendable, especially at a state park accessible by causeway.”
How should we develop Jekyll or should we allow any additional development at all? Should we simply redevelop existing hotels while not encroaching on any undeveloped portions of the island? Or does the island need the economic boost that more shops, hotels and condos would provide?
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Interrogation or torture?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
To its lasting shame, the United States has embraced torture as an effective way to get information out of “high-value” terrorism suspects, writes Anthony Lewis. He adds; “George W. Bush may seek his God’s mercy for trying to legitimize torture by Americans. But here on Earth he cannot escape judgment. For me he will always be the Torture President.” Read his full essay here.
Neil C. Livingstone counters that “enhanced interrogation techniques” are not torture — some are not even close — but that in any case the president should have every tool available to him to fight terrorism. “We entrust the president with nuclear weapons,” he writes. “Surely we can trust the president to authorize use of enhanced interrogation techniques in time of national emergency. Read his full essay here.
For background, see an in-depth timeline of the evolution of the Bush administration’s interrogation policy here.
What do you think? Have our interrogation techniques crossed the line into torture? What is appropriate when it comes to interrogating suspected terrorists?
Clarence Thomas at UGA: Appropriate speaker?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
UGA psychology professor Janet E. Frick argues that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was not the best choice for UGA graduation speaker, not this year anyway since the student newspaper, The Red and Black, “has written six stories detailing evidence of sexual harassment by male UGA employees (five professors and one coach).” But UGA president Michael Adams counters that Thomas has been a good friend to the university and “The tradition of free and open discourse on a university campus is one of the fundamental tenets undergirding all that we do in academe.”
Thomas as commencement speaker, yes or no?
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DOT chief’s stumble compromises her credibility
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Gena Abraham was lucky to hold onto her job as head of the state Department of Transportation.
Undeservedly lucky, perhaps.
Today, she remains DOT commissioner not because she acted ethically or appropriately —- she did not —- but because for the moment, the governor and other powerful people in state government have too much invested in her to allow her to fail.
Furthermore, while the official line is that the state Board of Transportation has resolved this scandal with its 8-3 vote to reprimand Abraham, that’s wishful thinking. Abraham was brought in to reform the DOT, a job that would challenge almost anyone. And while her hiring was controversial, Gov. Sonny Perdue and others argued correctly that only a person with a strong reputation and impeccable leadership credentials would be able to demand change on the scale required to bring the DOT into the 21st century.
For Abraham, that stature has now been greatly, if not fatally, compromised, with repercussions that have yet to play out.
Thanks to some artful stage-managing, the initial announcement of a romance between Abraham and DOT Board Chairman Mike Evans seemed more sweet than scandalous. Neither was married, and the scenario they painted was of two people who had struggled to do the right thing.
“As our friendship developed, we realized that there was the possibility of something more than friendship,” said Evans, who as chairman had helped hire Abraham. And since “DOT policy does not permit relationships other than professional or friendship within the direct chain of command,” he said, he was resigning from his board position.
Unfortunately, that initial version of events —- that Abraham and Evans had played by the rules, with Evans stepping down voluntarily as soon as the two realized where their relationship was headed —- has not held up over time. It is now pretty clear that the relationship had become romantic and serious well before it became public, and that Evans and Abraham disclosed it only when events forced them to do so.
In a memo sent to DOT employees just a few weeks earlier —- when her relationship with Evans had already gone beyond the professional —- Abraham had stressed “the importance of establishing and maintaining the highest possible standard of professional behavior and ethics in our workplace.”
Those who failed to meet those standards, she warned, would be subject to “the full extent of the department’s disciplinary actions, including termination. …”
It’s pretty clear that under the tough line Abraham drew for her employees, the price of engaging in an undisclosed romantic relationship with your boss or subordinate would be dismissal. The fact that she herself has survived that kind of mistake will make it considerably harder to demand change in others.
Furthermore, that kind of relationship gets to the core of what has been wrong with the DOT. It is a place where relationships and politics and friendships have mattered more than professionalism, facts and getting the job done right. Abraham was brought in to change that, but her ability to do so is now suspect.
The scandal has also weakened Abraham in another, more subtle way. Under the state Constitution, the DOT commissioner answers to the DOT board, not to the governor. But it has been quite clear from the beginning that Abraham was installed in her position by Perdue over the protests of several board members. If Abraham was to become an effective commissioner over the long haul, her next challenge was to establish herself as a person of independent judgment and standing, not someone waiting to do the governor’s bidding.
Even before this scandal, she had shown no sign of trying to make that transition. Perdue made it clear that he pulled her strings, and Abraham seemed perfectly comfortable with that arrangement.
Now, with Perdue and Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle riding in to rescue her job, that transition seems even more unlikely.
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Gas costs changing travel plans?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
How much have you been paying to fill your tank? With gas prices nearing $4 a gallon, are you adjusting your travel plans for Memorial Day weekend or summer?
Are you rethinking vacations or weekend jaunts or flights because of rising fuel costs?
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What can be done about panhandling?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
If you live, work or study near MARTA’s Five Points station, you’re greeted by derelicts and hustlers every time you go out onto the street.
Working a few blocks from the station, I run a gantlet of panhandlers, street preachers, lunatics and “salesmen” just to get to a lunchtime eatery. Some visitors believe Atlanta has more bums than much bigger cities. Atlanta police have all but given up on arresting them.
Atlanta can do better. Other cities have somehow managed to craft laws that curb begging without running afoul of the US Constitution. If other cities can get a grip on this plague of panhandling, surely Atlanta can.
READ CYNTHIA TUCKER’S ENTIRE COLUMN
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Ben Stein and Intelligent Design
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Ben Stein, actor (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off), lawyer and social commentator has a new film out, “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.”
Here’s the upshot of the work, according to a press release: “Stein uncovers a long line of biologists, astronomers, chemists and philosophers who have had their reputations destroyed and their careers ruined by a scientific community that allows absolutely no dissent from Charles Darwin’s theory of random mutation and natural selection.”
Says Stein, “Big Science in this area of biology has lost its way. Scientists are supposed to be allowed to follow the evidence wherever it may lead, no matter what the implications are. Freedom of inquiry has been greatly compromised, and this is not only anti-American, it’s anti-science. It’s anti the whole concept of learning.”
The movie “uncovers that educators and scientists are being ridiculed, denied tenure, even fired in some cases for the fact that they believe there is evidence of “design” in nature, challenging the idea that life is a result of random chance.”
Is Stein right?
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Clinton campaign coffers running low
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Clinton’s campaign treasury is running low.
Even if she wins by a big margin, she needs to raise a lot of money to keep going through the primary in Puerto Rico in June.
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Book discussion: ‘Slavery by Another Name’ by Douglas A. Blackmon
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Recently the AJC assembled a remarkable group to discuss a remarkable book: “Slavery by Another Name: The Re-enslavement of Black Americans From the Civil War to World War II.” Read the article from April 20 @issue.
The new book documents a South unknown to many — a place in which white sheriffs, politicians and businessmen got rich by enslaving thousands of black men for decades after emancipation. The process was simple and evil: Black men were arrested on a pretext, shunted through a rigged system and then chained like animals and sent to work off their sentences or debts in coal mines and steel mills and on plantations. (Read an excerpt)
The AJC invited a group of readers to discuss the book and its implications with one another and with the author, Wall Street Journal reporter Douglas A. Blackmon. (Read excerpts from reviews.)
Note that this blog is intended for those who have read or are reading Blackmon’s book.
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Dysfunctional DOT?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
While we are stuck in traffic every day, the Georgia Department of Transportation’s internal soap opera plays out: a board chairman resigns and a commissioner is reprimanded for a romantic relationship, a vice chair resigns Monday- the list goes on. What’s wrong with this vital agency and how should we fix it?
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Unless Clinton wins by double digits…
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Politics, like the stock market, is largely a game of expectations: If you beat expectations, you win; if you don’t exceed expectations, you’ve lost.
Given that a state like Pennsylvania is supposed to be tailor-made for Hillary Clinton — and given early polls showing her with a lead of 20-plus points — she’s expected to win by double digits.
If Obama keeps her victory to no more than six or seven points, he can count that as a win.
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Immigrants or abandoned houses? You decide.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Washington Post reports Monday on a neighborhood in Manassas, Va. where a crackdown on illegal immigrants has produced lots of abandoned houses. But some residents say they prefer the emptiness.
” When Chris Pannell walks down the Prince William County street she has called home for all of her 39 years, she’s dismayed by what she sees — vacant houses — and delighted by what she says she doesn’t see — illegal immigrants,” writes the Post. “I will take coming down here and looking at 10 empty houses any day over what we had before,” says Pannell, a title examiner, as she and her neighbor, Allison Kipp, 42, amble past lifeless houses.”
But Nancy Lyall of the advocacy group Mexicans Without Borders tells the Post, “It’s shocking to me and many people that there are people in this community that would rather live next to a vacant house than next to a house with an immigrant family. That is a perfect example of the racism in this county.”
Is immigration enforcement worth it, even if your neighborhood turns into a virtual ghost town?
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Drought is still extreme; Georgia still blamed
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
There’s a sense across metro Atlanta that the worst may be behind us, that the extraordinary drought that transfixed the region last fall and winter has eased and that things are finally getting back to normal.
That is a dangerous, dangerous assumption.
Yes, we’ve had rain. Yes, Lake Allatoona is full again and levels at Lake Lanier have been rising. Last October, more than a quarter of Georgia was experiencing a D4, or exceptional, drought, the worst level on the drought scale. As of this month, none of Georgia is experiencing a drought that extreme.
All of that is good; all of it is reassuring.
However, when you compare our situation to a year ago, things don’t look anywhere near so bright.
This year, we’re headed into the hot, dry summer months with water levels at Lake Lanier that are already 11 feet below where they were last April. In fact, springtime levels at Lake Lanier have never been close to this low. And even though water levels have risen gradually over the winter, the lake is today at the exact same level it was last October.
And last October, you may recall, the metro area was in little short of a panic, with the drought dominating the headlines, the evening news shows and social conversations.
Furthermore, even though the most severe drought symptoms have eased, most of north Georgia —- and thus most of Lake Lanier’s watershed —- is still experiencing a D3, or extreme, drought. Trees and plants that were dormant through the winter have sprung back to life, absorbing immense amount of water from soil still parched from last summer’s dry spell.
Streams flowing into Lake Lanier are suffering as a result. At a monitoring station on the Chestatee River near Dahlonega on Friday, the flow was less than 200 cubic feet per second, less than half the normal flow at this time of year.
On the Chattahoochee River near Cornelia, the flow was 440 cfs, again less than half its normal April flow.
“We’re going to start the season out lower than Lake Lanier has ever been,” says Pat Stevens, environmental planner for the Atlanta Regional Commission.
“We’re concerned. You can’t overtax a reservoir with such a small drainage area, which is what we did last year.”
Earlier this month, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed a temporary new plan for operating Buford Dam and Lake Lanier. Those changes, now up for public comment, would allow the agency to store more water in the lake and may allow it to recover more quickly, at least if the rains come.
Georgia officials, while supportive of the change, question whether it will be enough. Officials in Alabama and Florida are generally less pleased, complaining that it would mean less water flowing downstream.
Water in Lake Lanier “was never intended to be metro Atlanta’s water supply,” said Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), “and any decision that makes it so comes at the expense of the citizens in Alabama, Florida and downstate Georgia.”
U.S. Rep. Allen Boyd, a Florida Democrat, took a similar line, saying Florida was bearing the brunt of Georgia’s mistakes.
“The state of Florida has worked hard over the past 36 years to be wise stewards of our water,” he told Florida reporters, “and the state of Georgia must do the same by developing and strictly following a responsible plan for their continued growth and water needs.”
There’s no question that’s true. It would be a great mistake if Georgia’s drought-driven commitment to wise use of its water resources proved to be a temporary phenomenon.
However, it’s also true that our downstream neighbors have found it all too convenient to blame metro Atlanta, as if we and the Corps of Engineers somehow created the drought.
As Stevens put it, “The corps only controls a very small part of the water; God controls the rest. I think sometimes they just want to inflict pain [on metro Atlanta], not understand the science of the situation.”
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Hamas and Carter: Two views. Your view?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Washington Post on Thursday published an opinion column by a founder of Hamas, Mahmoud Al-Zahar, praising former President Jimmy Carter for meeting with Hamas leaders this week.
“Now, finally, we have the welcome tonic of Carter saying what any independent, uncorrupted thinker should conclude: that no “peace plan,” “road map” or “legacy” can succeed unless we are sitting at the negotiating table and without any preconditions,” writes Al-Zahar.
Yet in the same edition, The Post published an editorial harshly critical of Hamas and Carter.
“… it is one thing to communicate pragmatically, and quite another to publicly and unconditionally grant recognition and political sanction to a leader or a group that advocates terrorism, mass murder or the extinction of another state. That is what Mr. Carter is doing by lending what is left of his prestige to an avowed terrorist such as Khaled Meshal — or Mahmoud al-Zahar, writes the newspaper.
What is your view?
Atheists: Most dangerous fundamentalists?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
James Evans, a Baptist minister in Auburn, Alabama, writes about a new book, “I Don’t Believe in Atheists,” by Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges, In the book, Hedges writes about so-called “secular fundamentalists.”
Writes Evans, “The atheists Hedges has in mind are militant and even somewhat evangelistic and are busy spreading a utopian vision of what science and reason can accomplish.”
These people, Hedges concludes, are just as dangerous as religious fundamentalists. “Those who are blinded by utopian visions inevitably turn to force to make their impossible dreams and their noble ideas real”, Hedges writes.
Is atheism a form of fundamentalism? And does it pose a threat?
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Traffic to take heavy toll on metro Atlanta
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Before the recent legislative session, House Speaker Glenn Richardson joined Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and leaders of the state Senate in pledging to find a new source of transportation funding. All parties seemed to recognize the importance of giving metro Atlanta some means of dealing with crippling traffic.
“I’m willing to do anything except continue to do nothing,” Richardson said.
“We’re going to get a funding bill out this session,” Senate Majority Leader Tommie Williams promised.
Yet they did not. And in the wake of the Legislature’s failure, you’re left with one of two conclusions: Either Georgia’s legislative leadership is simply too incompetent to get the job done, or some of them weren’t really all that sincere in supporting a transportation solution.
Personally, I lean to the second explanation. If leaders of both legislative chambers are honestly committed to achieving something, it usually gets done. But if they merely want to look like they’re trying to get something done, well, there are ways to arrange that as well.
So far, a lot of the blame for failing to act on transportation has fallen on Cagle and his Senate colleagues. On the last night of the session, while the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly for a regional sales tax proposal, that same proposal fell three votes short in the Senate. And while Richardson gave a stirring speech in the House favoring the proposal, Cagle’s support was, shall we say, more muted.
In an interview, Cagle called that perception unfair, saying he too backed the concept of a regional transportation sales tax. But he noted that some senators did have serious concerns.
Asked whether he might have shared those concerns, Cagle declined to answer.
Looking ahead, Cagle rattled off a series of next steps, such as revising state law to allow transportation funds to be spent where the need is greatest. Under current law, much of that money is instead allocated equally among congressional districts. Reforming the dysfunctional state Department of Transportation must also be a priority, he said.
However, while both those steps are necessary, neither addresses the huge chasm between the need for new transportation capacity and the slim resources available to build it. To bridge that gap, Cagle embraces what he and others call “market-based solutions.”
In the short term, he said, HOV lanes on I-85 and I-75 should be converted as soon as possible to toll lanes, with motorists in effect buying the right to travel in less congested lanes. He also embraced the granting of concessions — allowing private companies to build new highways and recover their investments through tolls. For example, he said, such a market-based approach could be used to build an east-west connnector in North Georgia joining I-75 and I-85, resurrecting the notion of a Northern Arc.
However, those are limited and in some cases impractical solutions. Converting HOV lanes to toll lanes might speed travel for those able to pay, but it would leave everybody else still stewing in traffic. And an east-west connector would almost certainly fail to generate enough toll revenue to pay for itself.
Tellingly, Cagle didn’t volunteer transit as an option. When asked, he said, “Transit is very important. Every city the size of Atlanta has a significant transit piece.” But when I mentioned that building transit would require a tax increase, Cagle’s enthusiasm waned. “There’s some question of how that issue gets resolved,” he said.
The appeal of “market-based solutions” is obvious: Theoretically, they offer politicians a self-financing means of solving a very expensive problem. But toll-based approaches work best when commuters are a captive market and have no alternative but to pay a toll. (That’s why tunnels and bridges are so often tolled — they offer the only way to get from here to there.)
And that, in the end, may be part of the reason a regional transportation tax didn’t pass. Such a tax, and the transportation alternatives it would finance, might be viewed as a threat to those eyeing a market-based approach.
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Well-regulated milita: Gun training?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Richard C. Oppelt argues that we have abandoned the concept of a “well-regulated militia” embedded in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Such a militia, properly trained in the use of firearms and even in conflict resolution, could help defend citizens, writes Oppelt.
But the key is mandating proper gun training. Should government require varying degrees of training before allowing citizens to own firearms?
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What’s your question for candidates?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama face off again tonight in what could be a critical debate in Philadelphia.
The debate will take place from 8 to 10 p.m. on ABC. Moderators are Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos.
What specific questions would you like to see moderators Gibson and Stephanopoulos ask?
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Does America need a FairTax?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
U.S. Rep. John Linder of Georgia explains why he has sponsored legislation to replace the income tax with a 23-cents on the dollar sales tax. “Americans would keep their entire paycheck and have the power to choose exactly when and how much they will pay in taxes,” writes Linder. “It has always been a belief of mine that all taxes should be voluntary.”
But a former U.S. Treasury Department economist argues, simply, that the FairTax is too good to be true.
“Unless every state replaced their income taxes with their own version of the FairTax the vast majority of Americans are still going to have to file tax returns every year, keep all the records necessary for doing so and potentially suffer audits,” writes Bruce Bartlett. “For another thing, the cost of everything you buy—including many, many items not now covered by state sales taxes—is going to rise by 23 percent, the FairTax rate. This includes things like new homes and medical care. It even includes the cost of local government services other than education, which the FairTax considers to be ordinary “consumption.”
What say you?
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What comes next in Iraq?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Last week’s theatrical production in Washington —- the ambassador and medal-bedecked general flying in from Baghdad to testify to Congress, President Bush addressing the nation, the candidates for his job pontificating on the course they would set for Iraq as president —- created the impression of a great democracy wrestling with weighty decisions.
But beneath the somber pageantry and sometimes confident rhetoric, it was easy to forget that all of us, from the president on down, are really just stumbling through the darkness that is Iraq, trying to feel our way through to an exit that we cannot see and that may not even exist.
One reason for that blindness is our reluctance to take less than a purely American perspective. Most of the decisions that determine Iraq’s future will be made not in Washington but in Iraq, and while we cannot hope to see clearly through Iraqi eyes, it can be useful to at least make the effort.
Last month, ABC News, the BBC and other news outlets released the results of a carefully conducted, detailed poll of more than 2,000 Iraqi citizens, all of whom were interviewed in person by fellow Arabic speakers.
Some of the poll results were wildly contradictory, but overall they suggest that real improvement has taken place in Iraq, particularly in the area of security. In a similar poll taken in August, 11 percent of Iraqis believed that security in their country had improved in the previous six months, a figure that rose to 36 percent in the new poll. (The poll was conducted in February, before the recent uptick in violence.)
However, of those who believed security had improved, only 4 percent were willing to attribute that improvement to U.S. forces.
In fact, almost half of Iraqis —- 46 percent —- say security would improve if U.S. forces left Iraq altogether, with only 29 percent saying security would decline if we did so.
Other numbers bolster the prediction that, John McCain’s wishes to the contrary, we will not be staying in Iraq another 100 years. According to the poll, 38 percent of Iraqis, and 61 percent of Iraqi Sunnis, want U.S. forces to leave immediately, with another 35 percent calling for our departure as soon as sufficient security is restored. Just 4 percent said they would accept a more permanent U.S. presence.
More starkly, 42 percent of those polled said they believe it is acceptable for Iraqis to attack U.S. forces. While that number is down from the 57 percent figure of August 2007, it is up substantially from 17 percent four years ago. Apparently, extended occupation does not foster friendly feelings.
It’s also illuminating to compare Iraqi responses to those of Americans asked similar questions. For example, 46 percent of Iraqis say that security in their village or neighborhood has improved in the last six months, 17 percent say it has declined and 36 percent say it has remained the same.
An NBC poll of Americans taken at approximately the same time reported similar results: 42 percent believed the surge had improved conditions in Iraq, 13 percent said it had made the situation worse and 34 percent said it had no impact.
But the real question in Iraq, as it was last week in Washington, is what comes next. The ultimate goal of the surge was not merely to improve security, but to create an opportunity for political reconciliation in Iraq. Many in the Bush administration claim to see signs that such a reconciliation is occurring, but most Iraqis do not. Only 21 percent said the surge had improved conditions for political dialogue in Iraq, while 43 percent claim it has worsened those conditions.
Most ominously, 54 percent of Iraqis say they would not advise Iraqi exiles to return home, and 36 percent would leave the country themselves if given the chance.
That last number is extraordinary. If more than one out of three Iraqis are ready to abandon their country, the chances of holding things together in the long term seem pretty slim.
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Marvin Arrington: Atlanta’s underclass
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Marvin Arrington, who recently made the controversial decision to excuse all white people from his courtroom while he spoke to the African Americans facing serious criminal charges, explains his actions. “I challenged those young people to get themselves together, get an education and change their lives,” writes Arrington. What do you think of Arrington’s actions and his concern for what he describes as “the underclass of urban America.”
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Locked and loaded in Rambo fantasy
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
On the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Georgia’s most famous son, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the Georgia Legislature approved a bill allowing permit holders to carry concealed firearms in public places such as restaurants that serve liquor, state parks and transit systems such as MARTA.
The bill also made it legal for any nonfelon — including those without a permit — to carry a loaded firearm beneath a car seat or other easily accessible hiding place in a vehicle.
As a practical matter, those changes won’t matter much. The folks who want to drive around with a loaded pistol beneath their front seat are going to indulge in that foolishness regardless of what the law says. And armed permit holders won’t suddenly start using their weapons to either save or take lives in restaurants or parks.
Nonetheless, the law does testify to the enduring power and political appeal of what you might call the Rambo fantasy. And it reveals once again how easily that delusion can frustrate passage of common-sense gun-safety laws that might save lives.
We all know how that fantasy goes, because it has become a stock story in American pop culture: Bad Guy pulls a gun and starts blowing innocent people away; Good Guy pulls his own gun and kills Bad Guy, saving lives and becoming a hero.
In real life that rarely if ever happens. But we pass laws like this anyway, almost as a way to pay homage to that cultural fantasy and to placate the dreamers who insist that the law recognize their right, however far-fetched, to someday be that hero.
You know who those folks are. They’re the ones who like to claim that if they had been carrying that tragic day at Virginia Tech, a lot of those kids would still be alive today. They believe that the problem with today’s society is not too many guns in too many places, but rather too few, and they see themselves as potential white knights, just waiting for a dragon to come along.
But those dragons rarely do. In 2006, according to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Statistics, guns were used in a total of 10,177 homicides. Of that enormous total, just 195 homicides were categorized as justifiable, defined by the bureau as “the killing of a felon, during the commission of a felony, by a private citizen.”
In percentage terms, 98.1 percent of the time a private citizen kills someone with a firearm, the killing is not justified. Yet because of the power of the Rambo fantasy, we write laws as if that remaining 1.9 percent of gun killings were the majority.
And even that 1.9 percent figure is a vast exaggeration of how many times the fantasy comes true. The FBI doesn’t break the numbers down further, but I’d bet that almost all those 195 cases involved a private citizen who legally used a gun to stop a burglary or home invasion, not a crime conducted in a public place.
Having followed and participated in the gun debate, and having used guns myself for a time in my life, I’d also bet that rather than being brave souls ready to protect the rest of us, most Rambo fantasists are intimidated by the world around them.
That conclusion was crystallized for me years ago when a state legislator from suburban Atlanta announced in a gun debate that he would never dare to dine in an Atlanta restaurant unless he was carrying a firearm.
Now, frail little old ladies with walkers ate in those restaurants regularly without apparent fear, but this guy — a young man well over 6 feet tall — thought it was too dangerous unless he could carry a gun with him.
Apparently, the heft of 2 pounds of steel in a shoulder holster gives some of those people the courage they need to go out into a world that otherwise terrifies them. It gives them the bravery that nature failed to provide.
That’s a big part of the reason that lax gun laws are so important to them.
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Can Ga. General Assembly be fixed?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sure, House Speaker Glenn Richardson can hold a bill hostage until he gets his way. And Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle may be the legislative version of Eddie Haskell, pretending to be a consensus builder in public, but going all Darth Vader on tax proposals coming over from the House. (Read Mike King’s column)
It’s easy to pin the General Assembly’s dysfunction on its two most visible figures. But the problems are rooted much deeper and go back well beyond the Republican Party’s recent control of the state capitol.
It has a lot to do with how the annual sessions are run — insisting, for instance, that passing a budget and tackling every other issue before it must be accomplished in the same 40 days. (Other states break up their sessions by scheduling one for the budget and taxes and another for everything else.)
Some say the dysfunction is so bad, legislators should be bound by term limits. Others say such limits should only be placed on the legislative leadership.
What are some of the best practices of other states? Share some of your ideas for reforming the legislature. I’ll include the best of them in next week’s column focusing on solutions.
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Should Georgia be doing business with China?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Joe Astrachan and Tim Blumentritt write that Delta’s nonstop flight to China, an economic giant, will benefit everyone.
The AJC’s Cynthia Tucker believes that “there is certainly a place for…recognizing that pragmatism dictates certain mutually beneficial arrangements even with our enemies. Nevertheless, it’s more than a bit disheartening to see American business and political leaders so eagerly embracing a brutal Chinese regime.”
What do you think about Georgia doing business with China?
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Should Bush attend Olympic opening?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday called on President Bush to boycott the opening ceremonies for the Olympic games in Beijing, the Associated Press reports. . She said a boycott would underscore U.S. concerns about recent unrest in Tibet and questions about China’s relationship with Sudan and that Bush should not plan on attending the ceremonies “absent major changes by the Chinese government.”
Barack Obama, recently said he was conflicted about whether the U.S. should fully participate.
Should the president attend the opening ceremonies in Beijing?
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Guns on MARTA?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Legislation likely to pass the Georgia General Assembly today would greatly expand the number of public places where people with concealed weapons permits could take their firearms, including MARTA.
Good or bad?
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Economic wreck Reagan wrought?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson says the current economic crisis is a direct result of the late President Ronald Reagan’s laissez-faire economic policies which promoted less government regulation. Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign is tainted by this legacy, argues Myerson.
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Honor killings in Iraq: Democracy or theocracy?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Basim Al-Shara reports that key Iraqi elected officials, including members of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s United Iraqi Alliance and the Sunni-led Iraqi Accord Front are opposing an effort to toughen penalties for so-called honor killings. Under current law, a man can be sentenced to a maximum of only three years in prison if he kills or disables his wife or girlfriend immediately after witnessing her engaging in a sex act with another man.
Is this the kind of country the U.S. envisioned?
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Traffic wreck for commuters?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Are you tired of sitting in traffic every morning and evening? Are you fed up with wasting an hour on a trip that should take 10 minutes? Are you getting angry waiting for elected officials to address the problem?
Well, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and members of the state Senate have a message for you: too bad. They believe you won’t mind much if they make you wait another year or more for help. Or maybe a lot longer than that, like never.
Last week, the state House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to give metro Atlanta a tool to addresss its transportation mess. With approval by the Senate, and then by voters in November, metro Atlanta and other regions would be given the right to raise the sales tax by a penny, with all revenue earmarked to pay for regional transportation projects.
That approach has a lot of merit. Regions where traffic is not a concern would not see their taxes raised. In regions where transportation investment is badly needed, local voters would still have to approve the tax. And tax proceeds could be used for a variety of transportation needs, including options such as commuter rail, light rail and bus rapid transit. (Currently, gas tax revenue —- the major source of state transportation funds —- can be used only for roads and bridges.)
The House approach is so good that, initially, the state Senate passed legislation very much like it. But now, late in the session, Cagle and other Senate leaders have changed their tune dramatically.
They still propose a constitutional amendment on transportation funding, but their new version is barely a sketch of a solution. If voters approve it come November, next year’s Legislature would have to come back to pass still more legislation to put the idea into effect.
State Sen. Jeff Mullis, chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee, claims the new proposal would be more popular with voters because it is simpler to understand. But it is simpler because it does nothing, and voters would have no idea what they were voting to approve.
If voters approve the Senate version, the Legislature could decide next year to take a regional approach. But it might not. The tax in question might be a one-penny sales tax. Or two pennies, or a tenth of a penny, or no tax at all. It might allow funding for transit, or it might not.
Transportation funding will be the the most important piece of legislation enacted this session. Voters shouldn’t sit idly by while the Senate sabotages the effort
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Nutrition info in restaurants?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Even though not a single Georgia jurisdiction has indicated an interest in requiring restaurants to post nutrition information on menus, the 2008 General Assembly has decided it is important to ban cities, counties and health departments from doing so. (Read the AJC editorial.)
What do you think? Should restaurants be required to provide nutrition information?
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Tax breaks for oil companies?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Top oil company executives are scheduled to appear before a Congressional panel today to answer questions about soaring profits and the industry’s tax breaks as Americans pay higher and higher prices at the pumps.
Oil companies argue that tax breaks help spur exploration and therefore keep prices down but some elected officials aren’t so sure.
“These companies are defending billions of federal subsidies … while reaping over a hundred billion dollars in profits in just the last year alone,” complained Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., in previewing the hearing.
Meanwhile, Ed Ludwig, a U.S. District Court Judge in Philadelphia has suggested making oil companies public utilities. He writes: “Given the political implications and the strength of the oil industry’s influence, the chances of regulating it are presently nonexistent. However, the inordinate profits in the past several years, regardless of the explanations, cry out for demanding that oil be treated as a public utility. It is an indispensable commodity, and the opportunity for abuse at the public’s expense is undeniable.”
Should oil companies get tax breaks? Should they be public utilities?
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What will you do with your rebate check?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
If you are eligible to receive a tax rebate check this year under the recently passed $168 billion economic stimulus plan, how do you plan to use it?
Pay some bills? Save it? Or what?
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