Walk away with more wealth than the Rockefellers

Joan McCarter of Daily Kos reported that 140 former senior national security, military, and elected officials are calling on Congress to investigate the Capitol attack and its direct causes. It also calls on this investigative commission to recommend ways to prevent future assaults and to strengthen democratic institutions. McCarter noted the flaw in this request. These officials called for the commission to be bipartisan. The only things Republican members of such a commission would allow to happen would be (1) not investigate anything useful, particularly any GOP involvement, and (2) make sure the violence of Antifa and Black Lives Matter are investigated. So that’s not going anywhere. McCarter included some good news. Various House committee investigations are moving forward. So far they’ve sent letters to various government agencies demanding to see all communications from Dec. 1 to Jan. 20. I hope this isn’t just performance justice. Mark Sumner of Kos has a take on the Second Amendment, that part of the Constitution that those fond of guns say is more important than any other right, including those in the First Amendment. Sumner sees the Second jointly with the Third, the one about no soldier shall be quartered in any house without the consent of the owner. The two combined are to protect citizens from a standing military. Way back in 107 BC Gaius Marius started the transition from temporary forces to a soldier as a profession. When a threat arose the government leaders didn’t have to raise an army and train it before dealing with that threat. But a standing army meant its members owed more allegiance to their general (one one who paid them) than to the government. Thus the general is a threat to the government. George Washington impressed a great number of people because he was a general of an army, giving him a great deal of power – and, like the Roman Cincinnatus, walked away from it. The Shays Rebellion of 1786-1787 convinced the new American government that a standing army was necessary. Soldiers needed to be trained and armed.

The plain language of the Second Amendment makes it clear that the reason people were allowed to have weapons wasn’t so they could conduct a violent protest, or protect themselves from robbers, or even hunt up a few rabbits, but to serve the state as an instrument of security. The militia isn’t there to oppose the regular military. It’s there to supplement it. The Second and Third Amendments are designed to limit the scope of the military by providing an alternative. It doesn’t matter if you define the militia as the National Guard or as “all the people,” the purpose of the Second Amendment was to stake out room for a force to operate alongside the professional army, not in opposition. ... Overall, the idea of supplementing the standing military with citizen soldiers hasn’t worked out badly. There are currently over 440,000 citizens in the National Guard, and having them on hand for everything from dealing with hurricanes to handling Congressional security is a pretty fine idea.

I add that, alas, we have a Supreme Court that has defined the Second Amendment to mean citizens must be allowed to have guns. They have said we can ignore the context of “a well regulated militia.” From a post ten days ago (I’ve said many times that things can accumulate in my browser tabs, and this isn’t the oldest) Hunter of Kos discussed vaccine passports, the idea that venues with large crowds might be open only to those who have had the vaccine. Hunter mentioned the GOP resistant to the idea (half of GOP voters say they refuse to get the vaccine). Then he wrote:

As to whether a "vaccine passport" will prove to be effective in practice? It is … hard to say. For large venues—stadiums, convention centers, and possibly theme parks—it is quite possible that the idea will be adopted on a wide scale this summer. These places stand to make quick and extremely profitable recoveries if they can return to prepandemic capacity. But they also have their own private security forces, ones able and willing to manhandle any visitor who objects into a waiting van that will deposit them either outside the property, or into a local jail, or to the end of a nearby jetty. That may be the key to their success at a time when Republican elected officials are bellowing to anyone who will listen that such measures are satanic and oppressive. Restaurants, grocery stores, clothing shops, and other businesses don't have their own dedicated paramilitary teams, however, and that's where Countertop Rambo and friends will be showing up most often to do their pandemic preening. Restaurant workers and other employees are already being subjected to violence over mask restrictions, in large part when gutless cowards in state elected offices opted to dodge responsibility by leaving matters of public health to the least paid workers in their states, and whether these smaller businesses can enforce vaccination credentialing with any success remains to be seen. Workers may have to decide between a deadly contagion and a gunshot.

Cory Doctorow, who describes himself as author, journalist, and activist, tweeted a thread about the Sackler family. They owned Purdue Pharma, the maker of Oxycontin at the heart of the opioid epidemic. Doctorow described the lies they peddled to get rich off a drug that harmed and killed people. The Sackler family donated a lot to art museums to get Sackler Galleries to whitewash their reputation. Then they’ve been using the courts to fend off attacks. Purdue Pharma is now in bankruptcy court and a big question before the court is how much of the family’s personal fortune should be used to compensate victims. $4 billion is being discussed, though there is at least another $8 billion in offshore accounts not a part of the negotiations. Since this is bankruptcy court and not civil or criminal court the rules are different. Doctorow concluded:

The exception has swallowed the rule, and now bankruptcy is the go-to way for the beneficiaries of corporate crimes - even mass deaths - to walk away with more wealth than the Rockefellers.