Over-population

(Letter to the Oregonian)

Regarding Mark Matsushima's article on our hostility toward immigrants, I sympathize with his argument that these are people who just happen to be of other ethnicities and races, and that we should treat them fairly because they will eventually fit into our culture and add to it. He is absolutely right. However, he misses the point. Race and ethnicity are irrelevant to many people's discomfort with newcomers. They are crowding our spaces. If the eleven million illegal immigrants in this country were blond, blue-eyed Swedes, their presence would still reduce our freedom to move in much the same way as more people in a room does. Our parents may have entered America as immigrants, but that does not mean America can add immigrants forever and still guarantee the un-congested cities and open countryside we value and enjoy. We limit the number of people who can ride in a car. Why not set a limit to the size of the US population? Why not begin to deal with the procreation choices individuals make that exacerbate environmental and social problems world-wide? Why not talk about over-population?

Roseburg

The Oregonian's headline, "STATE AND NATION SEARCH FOR ANSWERS," implies that the reason for the mass shooting in Roseburg is a mystery, as though Columbine, Aurora, Newtown, Virginia Tech and Charleston had different causes. The cause, my dear friends, is always the same: a man with a gun.

Hundreds of people have been murdered not by grannies, toddlers, geezers or girls, but by young men. Males between the ages of 13 and 30 commit 85% of the homicides; they commit all mass shootings. There's something in the male gene that compels many men to form gangs, join ISIS, chain-saw forests and employ financial weapons against the poor. Many young men are biologically driven to hurt others, and given easy access to guns, they'll buy guns, or steal guns, and go on a killing spree.

America's gun laws make it easy. America has the highest gun ownership rate in the world - 88 guns per 100 people. The positive correlation between gun ownership and gun homicides is well documented: those states with the highest gun ownership have the greatest number of gun deaths. The same is true for countries. Reports CNN, "When it comes to gun massacres, the United States is tragically exceptional: There are more public mass shootings in the United States than in any other country in the world." With 5% of the world's population, the US commits 31% of the mass shootings. The NRA's argument that we could stop gun violence if more men had guns is absolutely false.

What can we do?

First, admit the facts: at the core of all bloodshed world-wide are men with guns.

Then, in this country, restrict men's access to the frightful objects. Other countries have proven the effectiveness of gun control. "In Scotland, after Dunblane, in Australia, after Tasmania, in Canada, after the Montreal massacre—in each case the necessary laws were passed to make gun-owning hard, and in each case… well, you will note the absence of massacre-condolence speeches made by the Prime Ministers of Canada and Australia, in comparison with our own President." (Gopnik, The New Yorker)

As to the constitutionality of gun control, lets look at the Second Amendment: "A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, being the best security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." The two words in this Amendment that gun-rights advocates steer us away from time and again are "well regulated." The framers of the Constitution intended guns and militia to be "well regulated."

As to the other half of the violence equation - males - let's make it a felony for any male under a certain age, say thirty, to have a gun unless supervised by an adult female or a male over 30.

Similarly, let's make it a felony for any person to give a male under that age access to a gun, whether intentionally or accidentally.

Do you think such laws would sober people up? I do. And good lord we need some sobriety when it comes to guns. Rationality, not heated rhetoric, saves lives. You'd be hard pressed to find any rationality in the gun-rights camp, however. In fact, if you want a clear example of "mentally ill," just mention gun control to a male, concealed-carry gun zealot. Then be prepared to run for your life.

Alimentary, my dear Watson, alimentary

The Columbia River runs through our region in much the same way as the alimentary canal runs through the human body. Liquids go in one end and come out the other. We do the best we can to ensure that the liquids going in are free of herbicides, pesticides and other toxins because we want our bodies, and the river, to remain healthy.

Now, let's suppose that one day a man came to you and asked, "How would you like to make money transporting toxic substances from point A to point B?"

You might ask for details.

He would say, "It's easy. All you need to do is swallow these balloons filled with cocaine and then carry them from here to there. After you get safely to the other side, we'll separate the bags of cocaine from your excretions, and then we'll remove the cocaine from the bags."

You might ask, "And why would I do this?"

"For the money, of course."

"How much money?"

"Enough. But most of the money will go to people far away who don't care a hoot about you or your health."

"So, if one of the bags were to break, if there is a leak, what would happen to me?"

"You'd probably die," the man would say. "But rest assured, that won't happen. We double-bag the cocaine. Those bags can't break. We are very, very safety conscious."

You weigh the hazards against the rewards, say "No, thank you," and go about your business.

Now let's suppose that on another day another man came to you and asked, "How would you like to make money transporting toxic substances from point A to point B?"

Once again, you asked for details.

The man explained, "It's easy. All you need to do is give approval for trains filled with coal and oil to run through the Columbia River Gorge."

You might ask, "How would this benefit me?"

And he'd reply, "It will provide jobs to train engineers and to workers at the terminal. If you have one of those jobs, you'll benefit directly. Otherwise, the region will benefit indirectly. Most of the money will go to people far away who don't give a hoot about you, the river or Oregon. "

"If one of the containers were to break, if there was a spill, what would happen to the river? What would happen to the animals in the river?

The man, if he were honest, would not mince his words. "The river would get very, very sick. And if the spill happened during a salmon run, the entire species might be wiped out. But let me assure you, there is absolutely no chance of a break, and absolutely no chance of a spill. Everything is double-hulled. We are very, very safety conscious."

The man might add, "We also want you, the Oregon tax-payer, to give us money to rebuild the terminal in St. Helens where we unload coal."

Last week, the Oregon Transportation Commission had to vote on this issue. Ambre Energy, a coal and oil shale company headquartered in Brisbane, Australia, and Salt Lake City had asked for a subsidy of $2,000,000. On Thursday, March 19, the OTC turned down Ambre Energy's request. Thank you OTC and, in particular, thank you Tammy Baney, Chair.

Competition

Ah, the noble fight. The well-deserved victory. Give praise to competitors and the competitive spirit! How could America and the free-market have thrived if rivalry had been reined in by regulations and rules?

As an example of achievement, let's look at the most American of sports, football, and in particular the NFL, the most successful sports franchise in the world. No one doubts that the teams of the league are highly competitive. The games are exciting. The desire among the players to win is intense. And the franchise makes tons and tons of money. About as capitalist as can be, right?

Actually, what makes the NFL so successful is that the profits of the NFL are distributed according to the rules of socialism, that is, evenly: the losing teams make as much money as the winning teams.

"Foul!" you might cry. "Outrage!" "Un-American!" And you'd be right. The way the NFL works is un-American. How could anyone think that rewarding the losers would do anything but make them lazier and more dependent?

In fact, it does just the opposite, and here's how. Since every team receives the same amount of money, every team has a more or less equal chance of getting good payers, and therefore a more or less equal chance of having a good team and making it to the play-offs. Of the 32 NFL teams, all but 4 have played in the Super Bowl during its 49-year existence. Because the teams are more or less equal, competition is stiff and games are more exciting than if one or two teams took most of the profits, bought the best players and won all the games.

Strong rules work. In football, boundaries are clearly defined. The number of players allowed in the game at any one time is fixed. Play lasts for a pre-determined duration. Actions by players are restricted, and the rules governing those restrictions are enforced by referees who have the authority not only to penalize the entire team for an individual's violations, but also to kick the player out of the game.

Imagine football without rules. Chaos. A coach could put more players onto the field to overpower an opponent. Players could run outside the lines knocking down photographers and spectators. Contact between players, which already leads to fisticuffs, would escalate to unchecked mayhem. In effect, there'd be no game.

Now, think of an economy with few rules, or weak rules, an economy in which referees are powerless to enforce the rules that do exist. What might such an economy look like? As you might expect, there'd be gross inequalities in power and wealth. The big-shots would run roughshod over the smaller players. The largest competitors (the multi-nationals) would ask Congress to eliminate rules that restricted their ability to take advantage of uncompetitive and powerless taxpayers. The most competitive individuals (CEOs) would demand extraordinarily large salaries, thereby depriving their employees of a livable wage. High-income individuals would fight increases in taxes that are so essential in supporting the indigent and unemployed, that are so essential in keeping the whole system competitive, and therefore healthy.

Some say that taxes on high incomes punish success. And yet, when high incomes are not aggressively taxed, the super-wealthy monopolize the game and the land of opportunity ceases to exist.

Who are LaPierre's 'Good Guys'?

After the Newtown school shooting, Wayne LaPierre, Executive Vice President of the NRA, said, “The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun.” He seems to have given a solution to gun violence and school shootings a great deal of thought. His maxim gives the impression of being wise. Unfortunately, it is simplistic and omits one of the most blatant and crucial aspects of human nature, which is, that every guy who fires a loaded gun at someone thinks he's the good guy. Eric Frein, the survivalist who killed the trooper in Pennsylvania, thought he was good and cops were bad. Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, who killed 12 people at the Charlie Hebdo office in Paris, thought Allah was on their side and cartoonists were evil. Men with guns in Nigeria kill indiscriminately in order to rid the world of "bad" western education (boko haram). Men with guns in Syria kill infidels (which pretty much means whomever they want) in order to establish a "good" and universal caliphate (ISIS). Men with guns in Iraq take revenge on the other men who, with explosives, blew up mosques and markets.

Since the beginning of history, the pattern has been exactly the same. One guy, feeling vulnerable or wanting to feel stronger and more important, gets a weapon. A second guy, who's on bad terms with the first guy, feels threatened and gets a weapon to defend himself. Escalation follows. Eventually, one uses his weapon. Armed conflict is nearly inevitable. Internationally, arms races lead to war. When the smoke has cleared, the winner writes the history.  And (you guessed it) the good guy won.

Gun rights advocates are correct about one thing: "guns don't kill people; people kill people." Gun rights advocates are also correct when they, like Wayne LaPierre, say that we should keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill. But that's about where gun rights advocates stop thinking critically, because if they took the next logical step, they'd have to conclude that one of the major examples of mental instability is a man who owns or brandishes a loaded gun.

Proof of male-gun-owner-instability is in the facts. Men are three times as likely as women to own a gun, and nearly seven times as likely as women to use a gun to kill someone. The problem, Mr. LaPierre, is not good guys versus bad guys. The problem is guys with guns.

Since we can't ban guns (it's unconstitutional; it's even too perilous to talk about because men go berserk and become mentally unstable if there's any mention what so ever of restrictions on guns), let's talk about making the ownership and possession of guns by men illegal. It's a sensible solution if there ever was one. After all, there is no doubt (statistically) that men with guns are the problem.

We can't get rid of men, though. In fact. a brief look at history will pretty much convince anyone that men have been killing off me for thousands of year to no effect. If men with guns can't get rid of men with guns, who can?

Let's go outside the envelope. Suppose all the women in the world proclaimed in one voice that they  were fed up with spousal abuse, rape, gun violence, gangs and wars for all time. Suppose they communally decided that one way or another they'd end male brutality for all time. How could they do it? By agreeing to give birth to fewer male babies. If enough women stuck with it, after just two generations, there would be so many more women than men that women could pass and enforce any and all laws prohibiting men from owning or possessing a gun? No wars. No poaching. No drive-bys. No ISIS or Boko Haram. No Newtowns.

Economics for a Sustainable Future

An article by Robert J. Samuelson in the Oregonian (February 15) asked whether debt (government, business and household) helps economic growth and reduces unemployment, or the opposite. He concluded that it stimulates growth in the early stages of the business cycle, and often reverses it in the later stages. As a consequence, we have booms and busts.  He ended the article with a tantalizing idea, ". . .  what the world really needs is another brand of economic growth, one less dependent on debt and more effective in increasing jobs and income . . . "

In the early stage of our own personal financial well-being, we borrow money to get an education. With that in hand, we get a good job. Unemployment in the general economy goes down. We make money and begin paying down our loans. Our credit rating improves. The economy improves. We start thinking about buying a house.

Now we enter the later stage of the boom/bust cycle. We buy the house. We have more debt (student loan, car loan, mortgage) than our income can justify. We cut back on our spending. Other people do the same. The economy slows. Employers lay off workers. We lose our job and file for bankruptcy.

Nations, unlike individuals, can't erase their debts through bankruptcy. Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, argues that nations should borrow more money to keep the economy humming, piling debt on debt forever.

Krugman's model works so long as the world's economic machine keeps expanding: more people, more houses, more gadgets, etc. But his model falls apart once we realize that the world is over-populated and that 'stuff' has become a problem.

In our present economic model, most jobs, in one way or another, involve stuff - making stuff (clothes, apartments, airplanes, bombs), using stuff, transporting stuff, marketing stuff, fixing stuff, keeping track of stuff, storing stuff, disposing of stuff, etc. In effect, or economy pays people to do work that damages the planet and makes it less livable for our children.

An economic system based primarily on making stuff has limits.  First, it relies on using up limited resources, and therefore is limited. Second, we already own more things than most kings and czars throughout history dreamed of. We have excesses in garages, attics and storage lockers. If the economy slows it's because our demand for stuff diminishes.

Samuelson hinted at an economic system less dependent on debt and more capable at creating jobs.
You and I know it must also be better at preserving the natural world.

The shift to a service-based economy is a big step in the right direction. Another large step would be a tax on fossil fuels - a carbon tax. Not only would this make the production and use of things more expensive (therefore reducing the desire to borrow money to buy them), but also it would generate revenues from those who consume huge quantities of natural resources. That money could be used to create the 'job' of living small, that is, for the hard work of self-restraint.

A carbon tax in conjunction with other taxes produces the economy Samuelson asked for, one that depends less on debt, and that also employs more people. As a bonus, it saves the natural world for our kids.

Life is Sacred

I believe life is sacred. Probably most people do. But do we mean the same thing by those words?

'Sacred' is fairly straightforward. It has a religious definition - "entitled to veneration or religious respect by association with divinity or divine things" - and a secular definition - "regarded with reverence." For me, the distinction is immaterial, because when life is sacred, I want to protect and preserve it.

'Life' is another matter. If I define 'sacred life' narrowly, as dictators do, then I protect myself and those around me (my family, my tribe, my regime), and I neglect (and might even kill) those who are outside my circle. Since the outsiders are not sacred, they are not worthy of protection.

Alternately, if I define life broadly, as many environmentalists do, then all life is sacred. In which case, I might risk my life to defend ecosystems against corporate plunder, and to protect endangered species from poachers.

Which definition of 'sacred life' serves humanity best at this time? Is it better to act selfishly and take care of myself and my family, and to discount my contributions to typhoons, floods and droughts? Or is it better to give up some of my luxuries and thereby reduce the rate of sea rise and slow the extinction of species?

Soldiers provide a good example of the consequences of each choice. When soldiers live according to a narrow definition of 'sacred life,' dividing the world into friend and foe, there is war. When they put down their weapons and expand their definition of 'sacred life' to include their former enemies, there is peace.

We can choose the kind of world we want. If we hold onto narrow definitions of sacred life, if we think that only humans are sacred, or that only some humans are sacred, then wars and environmental destruction will continue. However, if we expand our definition of sacred life to include others as well as nature, then we have the foundation for a peaceful, healthy future.

Assuming that most people would like to live on a peaceful, healthy planet, I must ask, Are we able to act consistent with an expanded belief that all life is sacred?

Bee deaths give us a chance to find out. For a decade now, commercial bee hives have been decimated by 'colony collapse disorder.' Since bees pollinate 30% of our food and many flowers, they're essential to us and nature. The suspected causes include monocultures, malnutrition, the Varroa mite, fungicides, pesticides (neonicotinoids) and the practices of commercial bee-keepers.

The consensus of peer-reviewed literature, and a 2014-study by researchers at Harvard University, point to neonicotinoids as the main culprit in CCD. Last year, Portland lost 42% of its hives, almost certainly due to household pesticides.

That pesticides kill bees should surprise no one. After all, they're designed to kill. Bees, though, are not pests. We need them. Life needs them. For my part, I can foreswear pesticides, fungicides and herbicides. But I am one small yard in a vast city, and Portland is a small city in a large country. If we really believe that life is sacred, can we act on that belief? Or are habit and lifestyle so deeply ingrained in us that saving the bees is unlikely, and probably impossible?