Ideological Soup
Quick reminder as background to a new topic: In California, Democrats in the state legislature are steadily advancing legislation that will allow children as young as twelve years old to make their own decisions about Covid vaccination, without parental consent or knowledge — and the author of that legislation argues that it’s no big deal, since the state’s sexy twelve year-olds are already handling their own medical treatment for STDs, domestic violence, and pregnancy without the burden of talking to their stupid parents:
Now: Democrats in Congress have introduced legislation that would forbid gun ownership before the age of 21, and one of the handful of national politicians who doesn’t make my skin crawl quickly introduced a shrewd pointing-out-the-contradiction amendment that would allow firearm ownership among men who’ve registered with the Selective Service:
Responding, perpetual embarrassment Jerrold Nadler, who works in Willie Wonka’s chocolate factory, helpfully explains that the amendment would gut the very purpose of the bill, because (and let’s just go ahead and throw some emphasis into this one), “there is a massive body of research that shows that eighteen through twenty year-olds, having not completed the maturation of parts of their brains, are far more likely to engage in violence than people older than that.”
If you’re following all of that, twelve is plenty old and worldly enough to take a lover, as one so often does in sixth grade, and then to get beaten senseless and seek medical treatment independently for those domestic violence injuries, and to get pregnant and get an abortion — sorry, “abortion care,” which is totally different — without parental knowledge or consent, and to get birth control and STDs, and to make independent decisions about the pharmaceutical products a young child has injected into his or her body…but eighteen is way too young to own a gun, because at eighteen your brain hasn’t matured yet.
There’s no ideology to any of this, no consistent application of any principle that can be coherently defined. What ties it all together is a commitment to tearing down, to changing whatever currently exists into something else, for the sake of changing it: I’m for [current thing]!
Stick to gangbangs and casual secret abortions, tweens, ‘cause you’ve got a full decade to go before your brain matures enough to allow you to handle something really complex, like a gun. Unless your drill sergeant gives it to you.
In other news, while twenty is too young to own a gun, four is plenty old to do a deep assessment of the potential match or mismatch between your anatomy and your psychology:
See, the human brain develops at different rates in the sex parts (early full development) and the gun parts (maybe your third decade). It’s science.
You’d understand that if you were a legislator.
I used to live in California. During the last several years I lived there, I went to Sacramento (a five hour round trip) more times than I can remember to protest/lobby against bad bills in the Legislature. So here you go -- Lessons from California:
1. Election campaigns for legislative seats should be 2 months long and fully publicly funded. No prolonged campaigning, and no donations to campaigns. (Would prevent Big Pharma from buying/owning legislators.)
2. Do not have a "full time" legislature. The legislative season each year should be short. (Reduces the amount of time for legislators to make mischief.)
3. The state should not pay legislators enough to live on. Legislators should have to make their livings by doing "honest work" in the districts they represent.
4. Sharply restrict the number of bills a legislator may introduce per legislative session.
5. Require every legislator to read the full text of every bill that comes before his/her chamber for a vote.
6. Restrict the total number of bills allowed to be introduced per legislative session to a number that is reasonable for a legislator to read, research, discuss with constituents, and debate with colleagues.
7. Educate voters so that they recognize that a legislator's most important job is to protect them from bad bills. (Currently a legislator's "worth" is measured by the number of bills s/he authors.)
8. Regarding legislative committee hearings on bills: Simultaneous hearings by different legislative committees should not be allowed, and every committee member should be required to attend each hearing for the full duration of the hearing. During hearings, require committees to allow each member of the public who wants to speak in favor of, or opposing, a bill to speak for up to 2 minutes. No more limiting citizens to Name, City, and "Oppose" or "Support." If hundreds of citizens line up to speak about a bill, legislators should have to listen to every one.
9. A state's governor should be able to exercise emergency powers for a maximum of four days in response to any particular emergency; this should be enough time for legislators to travel to the capital so that the legislature can convene and fulfill its duty to make public policy, weighing all the relevant factors (social, economic, environmental, etc.) and performing careful cost/benefit analyses.
10. The legislature should be prohibited by the state constitution from ceding its duty to make public policy to the governor or to "public health authorities" at any level within the state.
Rebellion against? Nature? Our bodies? Common sense? This is ideological madness.