D in Dallas Does Not Stand For Discipline

As a fan of the New York Football Giants, I couldn't be happier to see Dallas Cowboys lose. Especially in such a painful way.

I can't imagine how, with the ball 6 inches away from the goal line, how the Dallas defense could just stand up and not bother attacking, even with the Lions' QB Stafford feverishly giving the "spike ball" signal. The ball is 6 inches away from the game-winning touchdown! Dig in! Defend!

But that sort of sums up why the Cowboys haven't won it all these past few years. For all the focus on Dez Bryant's sideline theatrics, the whole team seems to go nuts whenever anything is on the line. Mental errors, costly penalties... apply a little pressure and the team goes haywire. That's on the players, yes, but its also a failure of leadership. I'm looking at you, Jason Garrett.

Of course, as a Giants' fan, I'm all too used to watching haywire football this season. If only there was someone to blame for an out-of-sync offense that continually feeds Peyton Hillis with carries while far more talented players are on the field... *cough Kevin Gilbride *cough.

How to Lose Friends, Influence, and People

Remember the glory days of George W. Bush, when we were all up in arms about the Patriot Act and its assault on our rights to privacy? Seems quaint now. Privacy is officially an illusion these days, a truth revealed by Edward Snowden. And it's not just Americans that the United States is spying on, it's the whole world--including our closest allies.

Those revelations have understandably made the international community incredibly upset. Bugging Andrea Merkel's phone? Eavesdropping on 60 million Spanish citizens... in a month? Reading the President of Mexico's emails? This is how we treat our friends?

Imagine if your buddies found out you were spying on them. How would they suddenly regard you? No wonder the U.S. was so determined to get Snowden into custody... it's not that he was a traitor, it's that he knew that we had betrayed the trust of those we count on most in the international community. Now that the cat's out of the bag, the question is, will our relationship with our international friends be forever damaged?

You don't undo decades of history is a single swoop, but the relations we've shared with our allies through two world wars and a bevy of international conflicts were already strained by the arrogance of George W. Bush's administration. The revelation that the Obama administration did nothing to stop these surveillance programs from overreaching is a debacle that threatens international cooperation on a host of other issues. How can we expect the world to respect the freedom of individuals when our own government has shown itself to be a bunch of hypocrites?

How can we take China to task for its lockdown on free speech and its abuses of human rights, when our own government has gathered the personal, private information of millions of innocent people? How can we stand as a beacon of hope and freedom to the world when our government has shown a blatant disregard for individual privacy?

We can't defend this. Not on the grounds that we were only targeting terrorists. Leaks have revealed that to be untrue. If you're targeting terrorists, target terrorists. Don't collect millions of phone records and THEN decide who looks like a terrorist.

After 9/11, the international community rallied behind us. For the first time in human history, the majority of the world was on the same side in battle. A battle against international terrorism. These revelations have fractured that. They smack of Cold War-era mistrust. They isolate us from the rest of the world.

Obama claims he had no idea... which doesn't absolve him, and in fact, drops him a few more levels in my esteem. The buck stops with the President, period. For him to claim ignorance over a spying program of this scope and size is either unbelievable or frightening. He's either lying-- which in this case, is a best case scenario-- or he's admitting that our military intelligence complex, given broad powers in the wake of 9/11, has become some Orwellian nightmare... beholden to zero oversight, paranoid even around its friends, and wildly inefficient. Don't defend bugging our allies' phones and scooping up the communications of millions of people-- question whether those resources wouldn't be better spent on people and places we know to be trouble.

The NSA has so far failed to reveal any real intelligence coups these programs have made. The oft-repeated figure of 54 plots thwarted isn't accurate, given statements from those who have reviewed the classified material. More importantly, none of the phone calls or emails gathered by the NSA program from our allies' governments led to the discovery of any terror plots.

In the coming months, Obama has a lot of 'splainin to do. If the United States is to regain respect as an international leader, it must earn back trust. I'm not sure how you do that unless we restore oversight to the intelligence gathering process and repeal the parts of the Patriot Act which give our government the right to spy on people who have never been accused of a crime.

If we seek out the terrorists we know, we'll find the ones we don't. If we look at every innocent person, all we do is waste time, goodwill, and the cooperation of our friends. We're a strong, great nation-- but if we don't change our behavior, we'll end up alone.

Here's hoping wisdom prevails.

A Middle Ground For Gun Control: Gun Safety

A Nevada middle school is the latest tragic scene in a long line of school shootings. In Massachusetts, a 14 year-old is being sought for shooting a beloved teacher and disposing of her body behind in the woods. In Texas, a napping nanny left her gun lying around, and her 5-year-old charge accidentally killed himself with it.

In all these cases, the shooters who pulled the trigger didn't buy their weapons. They simply took them from someone who was careless enough to leave their guns easily accessible.

In the debate over gun control, 2nd-amendment advocates say we don't need more gun laws. They say that everything is working just fine. More gun laws will only punish law-abiding gun owners.

But here's the thing. With no laws mandating gun safety measures, a law-abiding citizen can easily leave their gun vulnerable to misuse by somebody else. Only after that gun is used in a tragedy can they be brought up on any charges. Perhaps if laws were in place that were proactive rather than reactive, those people would have kept their guns better secured.

There are many easy solutions. Easy to implement, that is. At least if the gun lobby actually wants to stop their favorite product from making headlines for killing kids.

1. Require gun locks. Gun advocates argue that gun locks are cumbersome in case of an emergency. Okay, maybe. But requiring gun locks on weapons doesn't stop a gun owner from keeping their weapon unlocked when it's attended to. Need the security of that gun in your nightstand when you're going to bed? Sure, leave the gun unlocked while you're right next to it with your bedroom door closed. But when you leave the house, when your kids are playing near by, when you're out running errands... you have a lock on your gun which makes sure nobody else can use it in your absence.

2. Require gun safety classes. Right now, anyone without a criminal record can purchase a weapon. Okay, great. But there are a ton of idiots out there who... well, will think nothing of leaving a gun lying out while a 5-year-old is around. Requiring a gun safety course before a weapon can be purchased won't weed out all the idiots, but it will do two things. One, it will establish a longer period of contact between a gun purchaser and another party-- possibly enough to raise red flags if it seems that gun purchaser may intend to harm someone. Two, it assures that a gun purchaser has at least been taught basic safety and use of the dangerous product they're buying. Not all of the safety issues surrounding guns are immediately obvious-- for instance, if you hold the gun incorrectly, you're likely to break your finger due to the bolt action/hammer engaging. Or you may just shoot yourself not realizing that there's a bullet in the chamber after removing the ammo clip.

3. Offer incentives to gun companies to add gun safety features. Gun manufacturers have plenty of incentive to make their weapons more accurate, lighter, more deadly. One start-up even makes a gun that doesn't require aiming! The thing is, they don't have similar incentive to add safety features to their guns-- the truth is, people who buy guns buy them FOR safety... they don't worry about anything that makes their gun "safer." Giving gun companies a financial incentive to develop smart triggers and other ways to make sure a gun is only fired by authorized users could change the marketplace in a way that doesn't draw 2nd-amendment advocates' ire.

None of these solutions is a panacea... but they are realistic proposals that don't give gun enthusiasts much to complain about. They're basic safety precautions that don't rise to the level of gun licensing or restriction. Instead, they seek to promote responsible behavior. They won't stop gun violence, not by a longshot... but these policies can reduce the cases of gun violence that use a carelessly secured weapon, which is a goal that both gun control advocates and the gun lobby should be able to agree with.

UPDATE: Some gun owners on Reddit gave me some enlightening responses, which I want to briefly address.

As several commenters pointed out, most guns do come with some kind of lock. However:

"Trigger locks can be defeated with zip ties or a set of car keys. You are angling to create legislation just to create a false sense of security."

Well... a lock that's easily pickable? That's a problem, no? We can't beef these up? Well, no, because...

"Adding "safety features" to guns makes them less safe. It makes them more complicated and difficult to use, which means you are more likely to have a broken(dangerous) gun, or not be able to use it properly(also dangerous)."

The concern here seems to be, if someone breaks into your home, and is standing over your bed, you don't want to have to fiddle with a gun lock. I get that. But what about when you leave the gun at home, unattended? Leaving it unlocked presents a big hazard. Requiring a key to start your automobile doesn't prevent you from driving, and despite how "complicated" a key ignition system is, it rarely malfunctions.

"Could I just point out that each of these cases seem to involve criminal negligence(which as the term "criminal" might indicate, is illegal), and one case is attempted/successful murder?(also illegal) So the law already discourages and punishes this behaviour."

My issue with this argument is, irresponsible gun owners don't expect their guns to be used in a crime. They don't leave their guns unattended despite the possibility of being charged for criminal negligence. The act of being irresponsible with a gun, by itself, is not illegal, so one may think nothing of the possible implications of a possible crime in a possible future. If leaving a gun unattended and unlocked were illegal, then it might get people to think twice. Of course, enforcing that law would be nearly impossible in practice-- which is why I'm not advocating for it. I'm only for putting the onus on gun manufacturers to encourage gun responsibility by making gun locks a mandatory on every gun and pushing for the development of reliable and secure smart triggers. Apple figured out how to use your thumb to turn on your phone, smart triggers shouldn't be too much of a stretch.

 We're beyond the "middle ground" already. Gun owners have been the only ones giving in and compromising since 1934.

Guns are a lot different now than in 1934. A lot, lot different than they were in 1776 also. In order to pull off a mass shooting in 1776, you'd have to have about 12 muskets on you. So its a bit naive to think that as technology develops, the law should stay exactly the same. There are legitimate concerns about how modern advances have transformed our forefathers' shotguns into the modern weapons of today, weapons that have capabilities not designed for sport hunting or self-defense, but for warfare.

"The truth is there are more gun owning parents than pool owning parents but more kids drown every year by a large margin. If this is a humanistic appeal that has nothing to do with personal motivations to control, influence, or inconvenience all members of a hobby then you will be happy to know you can drop this devisive issue and save more lives by legislating pool ownership."

No kid takes a swimming pool to school and kills dozens of kids. Everything has its dangers, yes, but not everything is designed to kill. That's what a gun is. It is designed to kill. We shouldn't pretend otherwise because it's convenient for our argument. A gun is one of the only things with the capability of inflicting mass casualties in a short period of time, much more so than a knife (which requires close proximity and some degree of physical superiority). The other things on that list? Cars, bombs, poisons... things that are all regulated to some degree. It's fair for someone to believe that gun access should be unfettered, but its pretty disingenuous to compare apples to oranges by equating guns with pool ownership.

"Yo, 2003 called, they want their web design back. "

 Burn.

How To Stop College Rape

One of my favorite advice columnists, Emily Yoffe, a.k.a. Dear Prudence, waded into uncomfortable waters yesterday when she said one way college girls can avoid getting raped is by avoiding getting blackout drunk. She titles her article, simply enough, "College Women: Stop Getting Drunk."

The backlash, predictably, started almost immediately. And lo and behold... Ann Friedman, taking a page from my playbook, did the exact same thing I did to her vacuous article a few weeks ago-- she flipped the script. She titles her criticism piece, "College Men: Stop Getting Drunk."

She takes the format of Emily's original article and uses it to form her counter argument-- not the first time that strategy has ever been employed, admittedly, but very peculiar given what I wrote just weeks ago.

Come on, Ann, not even a shout out? An i-see-what-you-did-there?

Of course, I don't really think Ann's attempt at parody works here.

Emily's original article says:

A common denominator in these cases is alcohol, often copious amounts, enough to render the young woman incapacitated. But a misplaced fear of blaming the victim has made it somehow unacceptable to warn inexperienced young women that when they get wasted, they are putting themselves in potential peril.

I think Emily makes a solid point-- that if a girl loses her ability to function, she becomes an easy target for a sexual predator. I think she's being willfully naive to suggest young women don't already know this. But Ann's parody dismisses Emily's point by flipping it:

"As soon as the school year begins, so do reports of male students sexually assaulting their female classmates. A common denominator in these cases is alcohol, often copious amounts. But the obsessive focus on blaming the victim has made it somehow unacceptable to warn young men that when they get wasted, they are putting young women in potential peril."

Hahaha, I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE, ANN! You're saying that Emily's argument is as ridiculous as saying drinking makes men more likely to rape. HOW CLEVER! HOW DID YOU EVER COME UP WITH... oh.

The thing is, nothing in Ann's "response" to Emily refutes the very real fact that alcohol can render someone near catatonic, just as chloroform or a whack with a baseball bat (if the movies are to be believed). The problem with Emily's argument isn't that assertion, it's what she offers as a realistic solution to it: a plea to warn America's youth about the dangers of overconsumption.

Yeah, uh, Em, I like your advice usually, but... that's pretty lame.

Drinking is part of college life, as sad as that may be to some. It comes with the territory when you take a bunch of young men and women, many who have never been away from home, and suddenly give them near-full independence and only sporadic structure (nearly no one has classes every day, or even full blocks of classes.) Given copious amounts of free time to explore the brave new world around them, nearly every college kid experiments with something, be it alcohol, drugs, body piercings, tattoos or late-night-coding-that-leads-to-the-creation-of-Facebook. You'd hope for only productive avenues of exploration, but hey, even Zuckerberg was a few drinks in when he hit upon his billion-dollar future. A social life is key to a happy college experience, and when people of many different stripes are awkwardly mashed together, alcohol is a handy lubricant to get conversations, and yes, hookups, flowing. For many college students, getting blackout drunk is "Achievement Unlocked," to borrow the video game term.

So if you think your daughter won't drink to oblivion just because you tell her, "hey, one shot for every year is NOT a good idea for your birthday," you're probably wrong. There will probably be a night in college when she will have a few many too many. I dare say very few people haven't had at least one night they regret, even if the end result was just a bad hangover, bad breath, and a day spent laundering the vomit out of your angry roommate's down comforter.

So we can't stop college drunkenness. How can we stop campus rape? Short of requiring students to wear chastity belts?

Our legal system creates a Catch-22 for colleges-- if they're aware of illegal activity, they can be held responsible for what happens. So if a party is on campus, in a dorm or frat, the university shuts it down. The result is that parties go underground. They go off campus. The parties don't stop, the university just becomes blind to them. That puts the full responsibility to regulate what happens at these parties to 18-22 year-old kids, none of whom are really interested in being the party pooper.

Emily briefly addresses that lowering the drinking age is sometimes suggested as a practical solution... but admits the idea has little political traction. However, its the idea that, to me, makes the most sense. By legalizing drinking for all college students, the university no longer has to push college drinking into its blind spots. Then they would be able to offer incentives to students to act as sober, responsible proctors at parties--both both on and off campus.

Until that happens, its up to students to guarantee their own safety at unsanctioned events. Several student ideas have already gained traction:

1. THE BUDDY SYSTEM. No girl leaves a party without first telling her buddy. They can wear matching bracelets. How cute! This encourages friends to account for each other... and if your buddy is MIA, then you know something's wrong. It's not 100% failsafe... but at least it's an attempt to keep a girl from being isolated in a dangerous situation.

2. SOBER SISTERS AND BOOZELESS BROTHERS. No party should be without at least a few clear-headed designated sober students. As long as college drinking remains beyond university control, this sort of policy needs to exist at the student level. Flyers around campus could encourage party hosts to gather volunteers to act as lookouts for truly dangerous activities. Vanderbilt University, among others, requires that the organizers of Greek parties off-campus send them a list of students who will remain sober throughout the entirety of their events. Student watchdogs can be less stringent than a university official, but no less protective. Someone smoking a joint? Hey, he'll live. Two guys carrying a girl off into the woods... uh, no. no. Stop that.

3. AMNESTY FOR UNDERAGE DRINKERS WHO REPORT A CRIME OR EMERGENCY. Okay, this is not something students can do alone. This takes the government. But I don't know why this isn't enshrined in law everywhere already. It's common sense. Partiers will be less afraid to call 911 in the event of an emergency, because they won't be arrested for underage drinking.

Emily is right that talking to kids about drinking is an important step. But it doesn't end with talking. Teaching students to become responsible adults is one thing that college does. That shouldn't end once the drinking starts. Encouraging student leaders to establish safe-drinking protocols at their schools won't end every sexual assault, but it puts eyes in places where the university, the government, and parents can't go. And that's what is really needed.

Not snarky "responses."

Are The Republicans Sort Of Right About The Debt Ceiling?

No, this is not a Robbie Republican post. And I'm not saying that holding the economy hostage in order to destroy Obamacare is a sound strategy or a goal we should be striving towards. But at the very heart of things, when you get down to it, there is an aggravating factor that's led us down this path, one that nobody has done anything about since the Clinton administration: the insane growth of the national debt and our horribly unbalanced federal budget.

Now, let me be clear. Refusing to raise the debt ceiling does not reduce the national debt. In fact, if the debt ceiling isn't raised, and we default (can't pay our bondholders), then the national debt will actually increase. You don't reduce your credit card debt by refusing to pay your bills, and the government can't reduce it's debt by refusing to pay its bills. We need to borrow, because we have bills to pay, and not enough tax revenue comes in to cover them. If we didn't borrow money, bills don't get paid, our bonds are worth trash, the dollar loses value, and suddenly, the economy takes a tailspin, reducing tax revenues further, because suddenly everyone's out of a job. It's a crazy mess.

This is why we haven't defaulted. This is why we won't EVER default. This is why Boehner and co. are going to agree to raise the debt ceiling again, despite their whole stink about it. Because they realize a default won't do a thing to reduce our debt, and will leave us far, far worse off.

So why the stink every few months? Why the "hostage taking"? Well, at the very least, it's sparking a conversation. And so far, what's come out of that conversation has been positive for Republicans.

As I said back in December, forecasting our nation's future after falling over the "fiscal cliff":

Yes, taxes go up. Yes, defense spending is cut drastically. But both of these issues are temporary, and everyone knows it. It's very, very easy to cut taxes. It's very, very easy to justify defense spending with the global threats America faces. If no deal is struck by January 2nd, taxes will rise and defense budgets will be cut, sure. But by next January 2nd, it's very likely that taxes and defense spending will be restored to somewhere near their current levels.

The other programs? Programs for the poor and middle class? Programs for the arts and sciences? Programs for education? The Democratic desire to restore funding to these initiatives will be met with fierce resistance from the Republican caucus, and the public support behind them will not be strong enough to overcome it.

 Well, folks, we did fall over the fiscal cliff. The sequester did come into effect. And what happened? Exactly what I said would come to pass.  Military and security budgets have slowly been restored, but the other deep cuts, to programs on the Democratic side of the ledger, remain in place.

The debt ceiling threat is not intended to be a threat, because a threat can actually be carried out. What is it then? A protest. A demonstration. It's intended to rally their side in a battle for more cuts to government programs that Republicans hate. One of those programs is Obamacare.

The Republicans are right to protest increasing government debt. In that sense, the debt ceiling holdout, repeated, again and again, keeps the national conversation coming back to the budget. And that alone is not a bad thing. We need a balanced budget. We need to stop owing so much elsewhere. It is time to get something done on that front, after George W. Bush ignored it for 8 years.

Of course, that's where the Republican high ground ends. Because they're unwilling to tackle both sides of the issue--spending AND revenue. You can't just cut government programs suddenly and completely. It'll create a humanitarian disaster within our borders. A single parent family on food stamps won't immediately be able to pick themselves up by their bootstraps-- its not that easy. If it was, they would have done it already. Corporate taxes and the amount millionaires squirrel away are a joke. The rich enjoy enormous benefits of our free, safe, capitalistic society, and unfettered access to the halls of power-- they should pay for that. And I don't mean in the form of campaign contributions. You can't solve the national debt by cutting alone-- the math doesn't add up. It's just like how corporations can't improve their fortunes solely by firing workers or fixing inefficiencies.... eventually, they have to bring in money. The government can't invent the next iPhone... the only way to bring in more money is by raising taxes, preferably on people who will feel the "pain" the least.

So, yay to the Republicans for keeping an eye on the ball, the long term fiscal health of our nation. But unless they start getting realistic, instead of idealistic, we're not going to get anywhere.