A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

I’ve been listening to Dan Carlin’s podcast on World War I off and on over the past several months. With that war on my mind, this Memorial Day, it occurs to me that probably most soldiers who die in battle represent a failing on one level or another. We failed to avoid the conflict in the first place and there was a failure of imagination to solve the conflict in a way that did not cost the soldier his or her life.

As Isaac Asimov’s fictional Salvor Hardin said, “violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.” Or, if Sun Tzu is more your style, “the supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”

There are times where the value gained or preserved through war exceeds the costs of war itself. And there are times where the gain or preservation can only be accomplished with the loss of life. But, in retrospect, it appears that more often the gain or preservation did not match the cost. And that the loss of life could have been eliminated or lessened through better diplomacy or better strategy.

Today is a day to remember and honor the individuals who died serving our country. But I believe our debt is even greater to those who died because of our failings, the failings of the public, and the failings of our leadership and their leadership.

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.