Qualified to provide for my own defense

I may have told you when Newsweek went entirely digital at the beginning of January that when I signed in it wouldn't tell me if my name and password were wrong but would still display the "sign in" button. Since I was able to view all the subscriber content I must have been signed in. Early this past week the reader suddenly asked me for name and password. I didn't remember what I had originally used and whatever I entered it said, "An error has occurred. Please try again later." I tried a couple days later and got the same message. This time I called customer service.

Yes, the error message was wrong. It should have said, "Name or password are incorrect." And, instead of "user name" it should have said "email address." That got sorted out and I was able to sign in. While I had a live voice on the line I asked about the earlier "sign in" situation. The voice said for most of January the sign in feature had been turned off. No matter what was entered, it permitted subscriber content and still requested the reader sign in.

That's a long way of saying that some of the links I posted to articles within the reader may not work for you anymore. I'll have to go dig articles out of the public website.

Director David Mamet has an article about gun violence. He starts out with the famous quote of Karl Marx on Communism, "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." Mamet makes clear what is implicit: "The State will take from each according to his ability, the State will give to each according to his needs." Now who really believes the State understands my abilities and accurately determines my needs? A person interacts with the State through bureaucrats, who are only good at following orders and putting people into broad categories.

Mamet sees a bit of that in Obama's campaign speeches when the candidate challenged the 1% by saying you have more than you need.

Mamet believes government is necessary, but is inherently corrupt, and that citizens are easily swayed by the politician-huckster. The citizens must carefully watch over the politicians and replace them at the first sign of corruption. The Constitution is not to create a government (which claims to know better than the citizens), but to protect the citizens from such a government.

After making those points Mamet repeats many of the same things Larry Correia said -- criminals will have guns no matter the laws, so lets make sure good citizens have guns and are able to stand up to the criminals. Mamet concludes by saying,

The individual in not only best qualified to provide his own personal defense, he is the only one qualified to do so: and his right to do so is guaranteed by the Constitution.

I disagree. I am not at all qualified to provide for my own defense. I don't want to know how a gun works. I don't want to have to know how the mind of a criminal works. I doubt I am strong enough for self-defense fighting and don't intend to learn. I don't want to take down a criminal and have to live with the guilt for the rest of my life (and there will be guilt, no matter the strength of the self-defense argument). I don't want to need a bodyguard, able to supply the defense I don't know how to provide for myself. I don't want to pay for personal defense, I'd rather consider the defense of the society as a whole. Furthermore, I don't want to live in a society where my defense falls on me or even where my defense is required. I want to build up others and build up community, not engage in practices that might destroy it.

I went to the Newsweek website to search for the Mamet article and, strangely, couldn't find it in the search results. What I did find was a rebuttal by Michael Tomasky (published in an edition I haven't read yet). I won't go into it because he doesn't address the point I found important. But you go right ahead. I'll note that Tomasky's article got 3220 comments and Mamets got nearly 5900. I found the link to Mamet's piece in Tomasky's.



When I read Newsweek articles in the reader for subscribers yet need to link to them through the website there is the possible problem of not finding them on the website. That's the case of this one. So here's the link to the article in the reader.

Paul Begala comments on Obama's mention of gay rights in the Inaugural Address. Fine words, but will Obama actually put his power behind them? Begala says Obama can do three things immediately:

* Join the Supreme Court case on the side of getting rid of the gay marriage ban in Calif.

* Issue an executive order saying defense contractor companies can't discriminate against gay people. FDR did the same thing for race, creed, color and national origin back in 1941.

* Make sure spouses of gay service members have the same rights and privileges as straight spouses.

Jack Kennedy had promised to end racial discrimination in federal housing "with the stroke of a pen." It wasn't until two years later -- after the White House mail room received thousands of pens -- that Kennedy issued that executive order. Perhaps it is time to fill Obama's mailroom with small stones to help him remember his words about Stonewall.