A 22 year old man named Elliot Rodgers apparently stabbed his three roommates, shot three college women, and wounded seven others in a mass murder and subsequent gun battles with the police. He appears to have concluded the episode by taking his own life.

Prior to the shootings, he posted appalling Youtube videos with rants that were filled with misogyny and envy against “lesser men.” In particular, his complaints centered around his virginity, his inability to attract women, and his complaints about the men who did seem to attract women.

The efforts to paint this as the outcome of a societal trend and, alternately, as an isolated event unique to the murderer and, additionally, to critique the media as insufficiently attentive to one’s preferred narrative will, I suspect, be a spectacle. It features sex, violence, and money, so there will be no lack of media attention.

I’ve noted to date:
-Discussions about how this is about our lack of gun control.

-Objection to calling him mentally ill because: a) it is disparaging to the mentally ill; and/or b) doing so minimizes the ability to critique this crime as a product of other objectionable societal trends (e.g. misogyny, permissive gun laws).

-Discussions about how this is the result of misogyny and a pervasive attitude of entitlement by men to sexual access to women.

-Pornography and video games are to blame.

-Women are to blame. (I won’t go into details about this argument — coming from a site that adds weight to the complaints about misogyny)

-Race and religion. If this man were black or Muslim, the media narrative wouldn’t be about a crazy loner.

-Whether he suffered from Asperger’s Syndrome and whether those with Asperger’s are prone to violence.

The frame that seemed to fall in place for me was of a guy who was misogynistic on an even deeper level than merely hating women. Rather, his disregard of women as objects and baubles was deep enough that much of his anger wasn’t for the women in particular, but for the “lesser men” who were with those women. As if the women themselves were a means of keeping score as to how he ranked against the other men and that they weren’t keeping score fairly. (But, disclaimer, that was based on the little bit of his rants that I read about — I didn’t much have the stomach to wade through all of it.)

I’m sure I am missing any number of potential narratives to “explain” this crime. But I’ll be watching with interest the efforts we take to explain this to ourselves.

Network Indiana via WBAA has a story entitled “Indiana Senate President Pushes for a Constitutional Convention.”

Delegates gather in Indianapolis next month to lay the groundwork for a constitutional convention. Indiana is one of more than 20 states to call for a convention to consider amending the Constitution.

Senate President Pro Tem David Long (R-Fort Wayne) has backed the effort, in hopes of drafting an amendment to realign the balance between state and federal power, and, in his words, bring the national debt under control.

Those sound like good things, obviously. But the devil is in the details and, really, there is no need to call a Constitutional convention to enact the desired policies. There is just a lack of political will.

For his part, Long envisions a convention which is narrow in scope. But revolutions often get away from their bourgeois instigators. Once a Constitutional Convention was opened up, I would anticipate radical factions taking over.

For reference, here is the Constitutional Amendment process:

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.

Not having selected the North White Schools for a convention site, the state’s Republican convention will be held at venues that prohibit firearms on the premises. Niki Kelly, writing for the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, reports that the Fort Wayne venues at issue are the Grand Wayne Center, Parkview Field, and Embassy Theater.

So far there isn’t much hue and cry over the issue. State Republicans have generally been content to let private property owners make their own decisions about whether to allow firearms on the premises. The legislation requiring employers to allow employees to have firearms in the parking lot is a notable exception. And, of course, it has been deemed unacceptable to allow units of local government to make their own decisions about firearms on government-owned property. Firearms aren’t generally permitted in the State House.

With respect to the Fort Wayne venues:

Allen County Republican Party Chairman Steve Shine said all three venues have policies against firearms and he doesn’t expect them to change for the convention.

“That’s the normal policy,” he said, noting he hasn’t heard much about the topic.

Update (h/t Freedom): “Guns a go for Indiana GOP convention”

Sheila Kennedy has an blog entry entitled “Drawing the Wrong Conclusion” wherein she relates the self-congratulatory statements of Micah Clark and Curt Smith (both leaders of nominally “pro-family” and substantively anti-gay Indiana pressure groups) with respect to Tuesday’s primaries.

Smith and Clark are expanding on the narrative included in the Berggoetz/Cook article (and noted by me earlier) about the primary and how incumbent House representatives Kubacki and Heuer were unseated. For his part, Clark said this represented, “Yesterday’s primary election was as close to an across the board sweep as you will ever see in politics.”

That would seem to make him the Cotton McKnight of Indiana politics:

Cotton McKnight: Do you believe in unlikelihoods? Average Joe’s shocking the dodgeball world and upsetting Globo Gym in the championship match!

Pepper Brooks: Unbelievable!

Cotton McKnight: Ladies and gentlemen, I have been to the Great Wall of China, I have seen the Pyramids of Egypt, I’ve even witnessed a grown man satisfy a camel. But never in all my years as a sportscaster have I witnessed something as improbable, as impossible, as what we’ve witnessed here today!

In any event, Sheila says that Clark & Smith are wrong to draw the conclusion that these primary results represent a vindication of their views by Hoosier voters. Turnout was low and those who did turn out were more ideologically motivated. Beyond that, I’d add that this is hardly a wave – a whole lot of incumbents are heading into the November election and will likely return to the State House. Sheila says, however, that this is evidence that “the results do unequivocally tell us is that the Republican party is moving farther and farther to the right.”

I’m not sure I agree. Sheila might be right (usually the smart money is on that being the case), but I’d call the evidence equivocal. Is this the party of Smith, Clark, and Mourdock? Or is it the party of Torr, Truitt, and Kenley – conservative, but not unduly beholden to the social conservatives?

What is clear is that the power of pressure groups, in this case the Indiana Family Institute and the American Family Association of Indiana, depends on people – and lawmakers in particular – believing that they are in control. Perception is, in large part, reality. If they can convince lawmakers of the narrative that they can unseat disobedient lawmakers, their purpose is accomplished, regardless of whether they can truly unseat such lawmakers. And, so, at times like these, you have them turning their molehills into mountains. So long as that narrative remains unchallenged, they will be emperors with a splendid new outfit. And woe to the child who dares claim they are naked.

Let’s say that you hate the national Republican party, you have mixed feelings about the state party, and you enthusiastically support the local party candidates. Can you vote in the Republican primary? The answer depends on how you voted last general election and/or how many of the party’s nominees you intend to vote for in this election.

IC 3-10-1-6 sets forth the requirements for voter eligibility to vote in the primary and take a party’s ballot:

A voter may vote at a primary election:
(1) if the voter, at the last general election, voted for a majority of the regular nominees of the political party holding the primary election; or
(2) if the voter did not vote at the last general election, but intends to vote at the next general election for a majority of the regular nominees of the political party holding the primary election;
as long as the voter was registered as a voter at the last general election or has registered since then.

So, first step – you have to be registered. Next, you potentially have a choice – you can take a primary ticket for the party who you voted for a majority of the nominees or, if you intend to vote at the next general election for a majority of the nominees of a different party, you can take that ticket instead.

The primary is this Tuesday, May 6. Go vote.

I call this a guide to Indiana and I very rarely mention corn. Shame on me. WLFI reports that the corn planting is a little late this year due to the cold and wet start to spring. Planting is usually done between the last week of April and the first two weeks of May. Only about 8% of the state’s crop is in so far. But, we’re only about a week behind schedule, and the weather is supposed to be decent next week.

I frequently grouse and complain about our state because I love it, and I’m a native. But I have no complaints about our sweet corn. It’s one thing we do better than anyone else. Every year on my birthday, I request a menu of steak, tomatoes, and corn. My corn consumption has become a matter of public comment. I was given a little grief because I only managed to take down six ears of corn last year as compared to the eight the year before. So, I’m hoping the crop comes in by the first week in August so I can redeem myself.

Raise your hand if you have the richest middle class in the world. Not so fast, United States!

David Leonhardt and Kevin Quealy, writing for the New York Times, report that the U.S. no longer has the wealthiest middle class in the world. But, rest easy dear reader, the wealthiest Americans are still the richest rich people in the world. So we have that going for us.

So, what happened? Did our middle class stop being as productive, in relative terms, than our wealthiest citizens? Or did the upper class gain more leverage over the years with which to appropriate the wealth produced for themselves?

The report begins:

The American middle class, long the most affluent in the world, has lost that distinction.

While the wealthiest Americans are outpacing many of their global peers, a New York Times analysis shows that across the lower- and middle-income tiers, citizens of other advanced countries have received considerably larger raises over the last three decades.

After-tax middle-class incomes in Canada — substantially behind in 2000 — now appear to be higher than in the United States. The poor in much of Europe earn more than poor Americans.

The economic growth in the U.S. continues to be as strong as in many other countries; our middle class just isn’t benefiting terribly much. The poor have it worse. The usual response from those who don’t regard increasing income and wealth gaps as a problem is some variant of our middle class – and especially our poor – of being lazy and stupid. The economy is a morality play and the only way you fail or succeed is if you deserve to. Market don’t lie.

The report attributes the loss of ground by our middle class to three factors: 1) Our educational attainment – literacy, numeracy, and technical skill – is less than other countries; 2) Our top execs and management take a bigger piece of the productivity pie for themselves, minimum wage is lower, and unions are weaker; and 3) our government isn’t nearly as aggressive in redistributing income to raise the take home pay of lower and middle income households.

But socialism kills productivity, right? Not necessarily:

Even with a large welfare state in Sweden, per capita G.D.P. there has grown more quickly than in the United States over almost any extended recent period — a decade, 20 years, 30 years. Sharp increases in the number of college graduates in Sweden, allowing for the growth of high-skill jobs, has played an important role.

And of course, the poor in the U.S. have been doing worse for longer. But, we don’t care about them because they deserve what they get — on account of their laziness, lack of mental acuity, and poor life choices. But, those in the 95th percentile are doing much better than their counterparts in Canada, Britain, and the Netherlands. Which is as it should be on account of their pluck and ingenuity.

I coach my kids’ soccer teams – head coach for one, assistant for another. This weekend, one of the teams played a team coached by a hyper-aggressive type who seems to be working out some unresolved childhood stuff through the next generation. There is a rule in this rec soccer league that, when the goalie has the ball — even a finger on it — the other team is to back off. These are 8 and 9 year old girls. The goalie is often in an exposed position, we don’t need kids getting hurt. At one point during the game, one of our girls was bobbling the ball a little bit but still had her hands on it. The girl on the other team kept coming, kicking at the ball, either kicking our player or nearly missing. The opposing coach yelled encouragement to his player: “Way to be aggressive!”

My wife later said it looked like there was going to be trouble between the opposing coach, myself, and our head coach. When we challenged him for encouraging that kind of play, he feigned shock that we would be critical of him encouraging aggressive play. And, hell, who knows, maybe he really didn’t understand that one 9 year old girl kicking at another 9 year old girl, on the ground and focusing on the ball, might lead to unnecessary injury. Or, maybe he didn’t care – because it improved his team’s chances of kicking the ball into the goal. If the ref didn’t call it, then it’s not a foul, right?

There is a cultural divide of sorts among people who prefer a lot of civilized rule following and others who think that all of these protective rules are weakening us, that kids these days are too soft. As a parent, it’s been tough to teach my kids to be kind, sharing, conscientious rule followers on the one hand, then when sporting events come up, try to teach them to be rougher and more selfish – with the added ambiguity of being as physical as the rules allow — which always seems to be slightly beyond the amount of contact that the rulebook contemplates.

That opposing coach is, there is no doubt in my mind, of the school of thought that says kids these days are being made too soft. And, yet, I am sure that if I had walked up behind him and clubbed him over the head with a brick, he would have taken offense. And, if I’d explained afterward that I was just being aggressive that he should thank me for making him tougher, I doubt he would have been mollified. Personally, I’ve always been willing to play games as aggressively or unaggressively as the rules permit. I just want the rules to be clear in advance and everyone to play by the same rules. If we’re playing a friendly game, that’s great. If we’re playing a game where I can replace you with a smoking crater, that’s cool too. It’s when people break the spirit of the rules in a plausibly deniable way that I start feeling stabby and indignant.

Thing is, people behave this way because they get away with it. Cheaters absolutely prosper. Turning this to a legislative focus, the curious case of Rep. Turner comes to mind. Even if we find that his lobbying activities fall within the letter of the General Assembly’s ethics rules, I doubt they were within the spirit. But, hey, he was just being aggressive right? Think he made his millions by working hard and playing by the rules? Or did he make them by aggressively riding the edge of the rules in a plausibly deniable way?

In any event, it’s not rocket science – at the end of the day, we as a society will get more of the behavior we reward.

Tom LoBianco, writing for the Associated Press, reports that:

House Speaker Pro Tem Eric Turner earned nearly $8 million selling nursing homes in the last two years and stands to earn between $1 million and $2 million on projects now being developed, thanks in part to legislation he helped block this year.

Turner, of course, is now under an ethics investigation for his lobbying efforts against a construction ban on new nursing homes. During the legislative fight over the ban, the company in which Turner (and his son) have significant interests, said that the ban would affect five properties it had under construction. Two of those, for which information was available to the AP, would have – if the ban was passed – cost Turner $3.9 million.

This brings a couple of things to mind. First, I’m a chump for working a job that pays me based on the labor I put into the work. Second, the line between being a citizen-legislator who contributes his expertise and using your inside position for self-serving enrichment is not necessarily a clear one. But, given the amounts involved, Turner seems to be well on the wrong side of it. I wonder if he told his colleagues — “I don’t think this ban is good policy, but keep in mind that I stand to lose $3.9 million if you pass this thing.”

If I were in the legislature, I would expect to speak up a great deal if there was legislation concerning, say, the courts, local government, or debt collection. (Oh, who am I kidding — I’d probably spout off on everything: look what I do for a hobby.) But, if I was being sued in a private lawsuit, I’d expect to have to disclose an awful lot and probably recuse myself if the proposed legislation had to do with civil immunity for lawyer-legislators being sued in private lawsuits.

The question of when expertise becomes conflict has to do with how directly your interests are being affected by the issue at hand. In Turner’s case, the answer appears to be very directly. And that’s something the General Assembly needs to take very seriously if they wanted to avoid being tainted by association.

Jack Rinehart, writing for “The Indy Channel” has a piece on the Department of Correction not accepting D felons for incarceration.

Beginning July 1, 2014, the Indiana Department of Corrections will no longer accept certain offenders convicted of D-felonies.

D-felonies are a lower-class of crimes, but include assaults, drug offenses and property crimes.

Starting July 1, offenders convicted of D-felonies and sentenced to 90 days or less will not be accepted to the DOC. Starting July 1, 2015, offenders convicted of D-felonies and sentenced to one year or less will not be accepted into the DOC.

As a practical matter, I’m not sure how much difference this makes. I don’t know how many convicted felons make their way from the county jails to the DOC in 90 days or less. On a more theoretical level, it raises interesting questions about the interplay between state judicial authority, state executive authority, and county authority.

Maybe practitioners of criminal law know the answers to these things, but let’s say a state court judge sentences a convict to a period of incarceration. That’s well within the judge’s authority, of course. But, where does a judge’s authority to compel another government entity to accept that offender begin and end? This story suggests that the DOC regards itself as having some discretion to decline to accept some of these offenders. Maybe the judge would like, as an alternative, to sentence the offender to a county community corrections program such as house arrest or home detention. Counties aren’t even required to have those programs in the first place, so a judge’s authority to compel acceptance by the county to the program has to be limited. The county could simply discontinue the program if the number of offenders sentenced to it became too expensive.

So, how about the county jail? Things get murkier. Sheriffs are charged with executing the writs issued by courts. But there are at least constitutional limitations to the number of individuals you can pack into a jail. Now, most judges would be wary of overcrowding jails in their counties. But, it may be that, given nowhere else to send offenders, a court would sentence enough people to overcrowd the jail and simply take the position that the county was obligated to build more space.

If that came to pass, I predict that State officials would congratulate themselves on their fiscal discipline while criticizing the profligacy of local government. Because, it all flows downhill.