Biden’s Infrastructure Plan is Worth the Money

By Stephen Macaulay

The situation in the U.S. has largely been one where putting things off seems like the most cost-effective course. The operative word there is seems.

Yes, it may not be economical to, say, have a stockpile of medical ventilators or a warehouse full of N-95 masks, but then a pandemic hits and suddenly there is a lot of finger pointing while people die. Clearly, medical equipment and supplies that are not being used represents inventory that isn’t making anyone any money, but what are the economic impacts of having to suddenly source these products, both from the standpoint of the effects on those who need it and don’t have it (people dying in hospitals because the ventilators weren’t there; doctors and nurses getting sick because they don’t have sufficient PPE) and that of paying a premium for the available product?

Then there is infrastructure. Go to Japan, go to Germany, spend some time in the airports, spend some time driving on the roadways, and you’ll know that while people may chant “We’re number one!” evidence in plain sight will tell you that when it comes to infrastructure, we are anything but.

According to the American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) in the U.S. there are 46,100 “structurally deficient” bridges. The ARTBA — which, obviously, has a vested interest in getting bridges built or fixed, so take a grain of salt and reduce that number by 10% and you’re still at 41,490 — estimates that this represents about one in three bridges and that it would take 50 years to fix all of those that require work. As for the states that require the most repair, the top five are Rhode Island at number one, followed by West Virginia (if Sen. Joe Manchin isn’t all over this, then there’s something wrong), Iowa, South Dakota and Pennsylvania.

One would imagine that the politicians in those states would be more agitated by the crumbling state of their bridges — and let’s not forget that when bridges collapse, people can die — than they are the results of the last presidential election. But look at the list and consider what the concerns apparently are.

Of course, there is a concern for paying the infrastructure bill. But here’s the thing: everyone knows (or ought to know, were it that many of them would prefer to think that things are just fine until they aren’t) that there is a whole lot that needs to be fixed or added to the U.S. infrastructure, whether it is rebar in roads or fiber optic cables to provide high-speed Internet to rural communities. Water supplies. Utilities. Medical facilities. Roads.

While there is a reasonable concern that there will be monies wasted — in fact, it should be a foregone conclusion that there will be — at the end of the day there will be something tangible as a result. When the bridge collapses and people die, there is a rush to rebuild. The people are still dead. And the monies still get wasted.

Seems like a very false economy.

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Does Biden’s Infrastructure Plan Have a Chance?

By Todd Lassa

Rebuilding infrastructure -- addressing the dangerous bridges and crumbling interstate highways -- was perhaps the only major issue with which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, and her caucus agreed with former President Trump. After nine Infrastructure Weeks (plus Trump’s August 2016 campaign pledge) the last possibility under a Republican president of fixing the broken itself crumbled under the weight of the more-immediate coronavirus pandemic – even if the former president’s critics said COVID-19 didn’t seem to be of much concern to him.

It’s easy to forget that President Trump unveiled a $1.5-trillion proposal in February 2018, as The New York Times reminds us, but were overshadowed by a couple of White House scandals. In April 2019, with Pelosi re-installed as speaker after Democratic victories in the mid-terms, the White House and Capitol Hill Democrats announced they had reached agreement on a $2-trillion infrastructure package to upgrade highways, railroads, bridges and broadband. But Trump “stormed out” of a meeting to discuss how to pay for it, saying he would not return to negotiations until House Democrats stopped investigating him.

President Biden’s $2.3-trillion plan unveiled earlier this month isn’t much costlier. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has said “there would be no Senate Republican votes for the infrastructure bill,” columnist Juan Williams wrote in The Hill.“Full stop.” Capitol Hill Republicans say the bill is full of Democratic social engineering dream programs, and they’re opposed to Biden’s proposal to raise the corporate tax rate from the 21% historic low set by President Trump, on up to 28%.

To the Bernie Sanders/Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wing of the Democratic Party, $2.3-trillion isn’t nearly enough. But the Biden administration has signaled it is willing to negotiate with Republicans in order to get at least some support. The White House met with congress members from both parties on Monday, April 12. Biden will need to convince 10 Republican senators to vote for the package to avoid using the arduous reconciliation procedure (the Senate parliamentarian has ruled it is allowed a second time this fiscal year).

And even without the support of 10 Republicans to vote for cloture on a filibuster, Biden will have to convince fellow Democrat Joe Manchin III, senator from West Virginia, just to get to 51 votes, including Vice President Harris.

Key infrastructure provisions up for negotiation, according to the AP:

•$115 billion to modernize bridges, highways and roads.

•$85 billion for public transit to shorten the repair backlog and expand services.

•$89 billion to modernize Amtrak’s popular Northeast Corridor line and address its repair.

•$174 billion to build 500,000 electric vehicle charging systems, electrify 20% of school buses and electrify the federal fleet, including U.S. Postal Service vehicles.

•$100 billion to build high-speed broadband in order to provide 100% coverage across the country – a sort of 21^st Century Tennessee Valley Authority project.

•$100 billion to upgrade the nation’s power grid resilience, and move toward clean electricity, and related projects.

•$20 billion to redress communities whose neighborhoods were divided by those Eisenhower-spawned highway projects. This affects mostly non-white neighborhoods.

•$111 billion to replace lead water pipes and upgrade sewer systems.

•$50 billion to improve infrastructure resilience to counter natural disasters.

•$180 billion in research & development projects.

•$300 billion for manufacturing, including funds for the computer chip sector (it would be nice during a pandemic not to have to wait for ships full of them to arrive from China), improved access to capital, and clean energy investment.

That’s $1.324 trillion, leaving nearly $976 billion for such programs as money to build, preserve and retrofit more than 2 million affordable houses and buildings and expansion of long-term services under Medicaid (at $400-billion, the single costliest line item).

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It’s Time for Infrastructure, Not for Corporate Tax Hikes

By Bryan Williams

So what is a Republican not to like about infrastructure? You know, spending our tax-payer dollars on things that benefit all of us instead of, say, the harder-to-see societal gains that $2 billion a year in aid to Israel or the $6 million each for an anti-radiation guided missile attached to an Air Force bomber brings. As with previous fits and starts to infrastructure bills, this one seems no different. The center column tells of Trump’s own infrastructure plan that would have cost nearly as much as Biden’s. It has been touted for years now – at least the past three to four election cycles – that “infrastructure should be the one thing both parties can agree on.” And yet … here we are in 2021 still trying to get it done.

I see this latest effort as kind of ho-hum. This country has sustained three rounds of massively expensive COVID-19 stimulus bills, each in the trillions – with a t—of dollars, and the fiscal sky has not fallen. And yeah, I used to be right with (former) Rep. Paul Ryan, R-WI, and other fiscal hawks who said our children will end up paying for our profligacy. I remember hearing that in the ‘90s when I was a kid. Sure the national debt has gone up a lot, but the United States is still considered the most powerful nation in the world. We have the most advanced, most powerful military, and we just landed our fourth rover on another planet, this time with a miniature helicopter on board to fly around Mars. So yeah, the argument that all this debt will hamstring our society rings a little hollow.

The one thing that grinds my gears are the taxes Biden wants to raise on corporations after three short years of the new, low rate that has finally made America competitive with the rest of the world. Businesses like stability, right? Why raise their taxes when they are just starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel after a year of pandemic shutdowns? Seems like a bad idea to raise taxes on the companies that will be hiring all of us back.

And why does it all have to be in one massive omnibus bill? Haven’t we all become tired of these huge tomes that become “law?” Remember the words, “We have to pass it to find out what’s in it [because it’s too big to read],” when the Affordable Care Act was being negotiated? Reminds me of Michael Scott (Steve Carell) from The Office. When asked if he ever read Lee Iacocca’s book, “Talking Straight,” he answered, “Read it? I own it! But no, I have not read it.” Let’s break this bill up into its constituent parts so the general public, as well as congressmembers and their staff have time to read all its components, and even understand it. One bill for roads, one bill for broadband, etc. This may slow down the process, but hey, we’ve waited this long, right?

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Affirmative Debaters Lay Out Arguments for Universal Health Care

Affirmatives arguing for the resolution, “Should government provide health care for all citizens?” took a full, universal coverage position in Thursday evening’s Allegany County Day of Civility debate, which means they favor a single-payer system that would not eliminate private health insurance for those willing to pay.

“In America, it has been proven the better your income, the better your health,” argued Jessica Thayer, lead-off affirmative and president of Frostburg State University’s debate club. Health outcomes have “ties with other issues in society,” most notably poverty versus wealth, and race.

Between 2011 and 2013, 38% of families earning less than $22,500 per year reported being in fair or poor health, while only 12% of those earning $47,000 or more reported the same, Thayer said, and the uninsured rate by 2018 was 9.7% of Black Americans, versus 4.7% of white Americans. Several states, she said, still have not accepted the Medicaid expansion made possible by the Obama administration’s Affordable Care Act.

Meanwhile, the biggest supporter of the health care industry, according to Thayer, the fast-food industry, concentrates drive-through restaurants and convenience stores in poor neighborhoods.

“Counties with poverty rates of more than 35% have obesity rates 145% greater than wealthy counties,” she said. “Universal health care can ultimately be the only thing standing between life and death for people in poverty.” Thayer added that “universal participation causes no compromises or deterioration of rights.”

During cross-examination in the parliamentary-style debate, negative debater Isadore Johnson pointed to inequalities in such universal care systems as those in England and Israel.

“We are an extremely wealthy country with great inequality,” Thayer responded. “The poor are left with absolutely no choice at all.” She added that, while universal health care here would not necessarily level the playing field, it would be an improvement over the poor having “no choice at all.”

Brent Thomas asked Johnson whether he would accept subsidized health care as a reasonable alternative.

“It is possible and would be less-bad than universal health care, but would be less good than private insurance,” he replied. Obamacare attempted that, Johnson continued, but was unsuccessful.

The second affirmative in the debate, Logan Carlile of the FSU debate club, noted that the federal government has tried to address the old, sick and poor since the 1930s, and indirectly countered negative debater Johnson’s citation of a long waiting list at the Phoenix VA hospital, saying the Veterans Administration health care has an overall approval rating of more than 80%.

A system based on for-profit health care is “immoral, leaving people without proper treatment,” Carlile said, noting that 31 million Americans have no health insurance coverage, and 2 million citizens per year die without coverage.

“What would happen to health care insurance?” asked an audience member identified as “H Sack.”

It would not be eliminated as an option, Carlile maintained, though the “middle-class pays a large portion of its income toward premiums.”

FSU debate team secretary Delanie Blubaugh, the third affirmative, spoke of three countries that have had success with universal coverage; Australia, Canada and Brazil.

All three co-exist with private health care options. In Australia, for example, private insurance pays for faster services for non-emergencies, and the country’s system is decentralized, with a high degree of social participation.

From the audience, Sierra Widmar asked, “How would universal health care affect the cost people are paying?”

“Consider public health care as equivalent to public education,” Blubaugh responded.

Lauren Nordquist, the final affirmative, also an FSU debate team member, asserted that “medical costs, in general, would significantly decrease,” to balance the cost of higher income taxes that would pay for the service. Further offset would come from more healthy people able to produce and consume a capitalist economy. But when Kendall Kidwell, a debate audience member, asked whether the federal government might choose specific treatments for those covered by a single-payer plan, Nordquist left that issue open for criticism from the negative side.

“It is possible for one mandated procedure to be chosen,” she replied.

Annette Ritter wrapped up the affirmative-side position on government-provided health care for all citizens – universal care – with this: “The U.S. does not have a health care system. It has a health insurance system.”

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Day of Civility Debate on Universal Health Care

The Allegany County Day of Civility presented a Zoom debate by Braver Angels/Bridge USA and the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) Thursday, April 8, on the resolution: “Should government provide health care for all citizens?”

The debate was organized by the Allegany College of Maryland and Frostburg State University, and sponsored by Allegany County Choose Civility, the Allegany College of Maryland’s Peace Club, its Democracy Commitment Committee, the Frostburg State University Debate Team, FSU Communication Leadership Lab and The Hustings.

This column as well as the two adjacent are related to the theme.

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What’s your position on “Should government provide healthcare for all citizens?” Let us know at editors@thehustings.news. We organize the responses to the L and to the R and post all comments that meet our standards (click on “About”) over the weekend. Comments must meet the Braver Angels’ and The Hustings’ standards for civil discourse, and may be edited for length and clarity

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Negative Debaters Argue Against Universal Health Care

Negatives against the resolution, “Should government provide health care for all citizens?” argued against both a single-payer plan as well as the provisions of the Obama administration’s Affordable Care Act in Thursday evening’s Allegany County Day of Civility event.

The first negative-side speaker, University of Connecticut economics student Isadore Johnson said that “even if attainable in other countries … our country would not be good at this.” The federal bureaucracy is not efficient with health care, he said, noting that one Veterans Administration hospital in Phoenix “had a 1,400 to 1,600 patient waiting list for two years.”

According to Johnson, Medicare has higher per-capita administrative costs, so costs under a universal system “might actually go up.” Johnson cited the Rand Health Experiment of 1974-82, in which the non-profit corporation created its own health care system and placed study subjects into different insurance systems. The experiment did not make at-risk and poor people better off with subsidized health care, he said.

“When you don’t have to pay the costs for things you want, people tend to overpay and overuse,” Johnson said.

Private insurance pays more for pharmaceuticals, and so a single-payer plan would stifle investment for innovations in vaccines and medicines. Government health care would be run capriciously, he added.

Johnson pointed to universal care failures, citing Massachusetts (then-Republican Gov. Romney’s program, which President Obama used as a model for the ACA) and Tennessee, as well as England (“22 weeks for any specialized health care,” and they “rely on health tourists to pay”) and Canada, which underpays doctors and thus must bring in foreign medical personnel.

From the audience, Marisa Cooper asked about Rand Health Experiment co-morbidity differences between poor and middle-class study groups in the Rand experiment, and of patient non-compliance affecting the data.

“I believe they looked at a number of co-morbidities,” Johnson replied. He noted two slight improvements regarding patient anxiety and lower cases of rare diseases. "Other than that, no differences in co-morbidities" were reported. “I don’t see how (universal) health care would affect compliance,” he added.

Brent Thomas, also in the Zoom audience, asked whether subsidies for private insurance would work in the U.S.

“It is possible and would be less-bad than universal health care but would be less good than” the free market, Johnson responded. “Obamacare attempted to do this (middle-ground subsidies),” but was unsuccessful, he added.

“It boils down to a social contract,” the second negative, Luke Nathan Phillips, a Braver Angels staffer, said. “Do Americans deserve to have the same standard of services? Most conservatives and libertarians would say ‘yes.’”

Universal care is “welfare-state insurance” Phillips says, while what we’ve got now is “welfare individualism” (the ACA) and “welfare capitalism” (employer provided insurance). A better alternative to welfare-state insurance, he said, would be “expansion of incentives and pressure on the American business community to provide better packages.”

But Phillips concedes there is a divide between the middle-class and working class, the latter is less likely to have employer-supplied health care, and that issue needs to be addressed.

The next negative debater, Greta Wagley, of the Association of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA), has a much-different point-of-view.

“Health care is not a human right,” Wagley said. “The government doesn’t buy me a gun or give me land.” The difference in these rights is between “needs” and “wants,” and if she comes across, say, a woman in need on the street, “I reach into my pocket and help her myself,” or take her to a church or get her a GoFundMe account.

“As long as people disagree whether health care is a right, it is immoral to consider a universal health care system,” she said, arguing that there are some medical procedures to which she is morally opposed.

The previous negative, Luke Nathan Phillips, asked Wagley whether a taxpayer who opposes government-funded road construction can make the same argument.

“There is no moral equivalent between taxpayers paying for roads, and paying for abortions and assisted suicides,” she replied.

“I pay for my own health care insurance; I think it’s a good thing to pay for,” she concluded. “President Trump reduced a lot of regulations (from the ACA). I think that’s a good thing.”

Fellow negative Connor Murnane, also of ACTA, had a much different take on the “rights” issue.

“Health care is a right, but a right in the sense that free speech or education is a right. … There are far too many dangerous consequences to universal coverage, including government mandating specific treatments.” He noted that tech companies already have launched programs that reduce costs and operate outside the insurance system, citing smartphone/video medical provider Teledoc. “The government must not infringe on a citizen’s right to choose.” (While universal care might, like the ACA, let insured Americans keep their insurance, it is less likely the government would consider something like Teledoc a valid alternative.)

Affirmative Logan Carlile asked how a citizen with no money can fulfill his or her right to health care.

“It is not the government’s responsibility, but for those in need, there are safety nets in place,” Murnane replied.

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Opening Arguments in Favor of Government-Provided Health Care

Editor’s note: Opening speakers in the affirmative for the Allegany County, Maryland, Day of Civility April 8 debate resolution, “Should government provide health care for all citizens?” are Logan Carlile, Delanie Blubauth and Lauren Nordquist, of Frostburg State University.

Here are some of their talking points for the affirmatives’ opening arguments in the debate…

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), better known as “Obamacare,” survived former President Donald Trump’s promise to completely dismantle and replace it with a new, Republican plan, although with the key provision of the individual mandate having been made ineffective. While President Joseph Biden has promised as part of his agenda to restore such kneecapped provisions, more-progressive congressional Democrats are anxious to take health care reform to the ultimate level: A federal government-backed single-payer plan.

Affirmatives debating in favor of the resolution, “Should government provide healthcare for all citizens?” in the Braver Angels/Bridge USA/ACTA debate Thursday night have set such a plan as the goal. Here are a few arguments we can expect from affirmatives in the debate …

•Providing universal health care will ultimately cost less than the current “free-market” system. The uninsured in the U.S. cost taxpayers more in the end and giving them government-backed insurance up front leverages taxpayer money, compared with forced emergency services when the illness or injury becomes more severe.

•Single-payer healthcare is not a forced-government plan. That is, those who have their own health insurance, or employer-provided insurance will not have to give it up, as often claimed by opponents of such a system.

•Universal healthcare in the U.S. will set an example on the world stage that the U.S. is committed to its promises of equality for all and to ensuring a high quality of life through the instatement of resources to support basic right to life.

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Should Government Provide Health Care for All Citizens?

By Todd Lassa

The Allegany County Day of Civility presents a Zoom debate by Braver Angels/Bridge USA and the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) Thursday, April 8, beginning 7 pm Eastern time on the resolution; “Should government provide health care for all citizens?” The debate is organized by the Allegany College of Maryland and Frostburg State University, and is sponsored by Allegany County Choose Civility, the Allegany College of Maryland’s Peace Club, its Democracy Commitment Committee, the Frostburg State University Debate Team, FSU Communication Leadership Lab and The Hustings. You may register for the debate (free) at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/braver-angels-debate-should-government-provide-healthcare-for-all-citizens-tickets-146961278139 up to 6 pm Eastern time Thursday, and you are encouraged to participate.

This post is a preview of the debate, with affirmative talking points in the left column and negative talking points in the right column. Come back to this site Friday for a review post of the debate, and again on the weekend for a compilation of your comments. Instructions on how to comment are at the end of this column.

Theodore Roosevelt was the first president to seriously propose universal health care, toward the end, and again after his second term as president. Most Americans paid their doctors directly back then, although some union workers received health care benefits. The notion of government help or involvement did not make a serious political appearance until the Social Security Act of 1965 sought to cover the older and the poor with Medicare and Medicaid.

Universal health care advocates had to wait another 45 years — until 2010 – for any significant new legislation, when the Obama administration pushed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) through a Democratic-majority Congress just months before Republicans won 63 House seats in the 2010 mid-terms. Though President Obama claimed the ACA was modeled on former Republican Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s health care reform program for his state, universal health care coverage had shifted from a fair degree of bi-partisan support to become a very polarizing issue.

“Obamacare” immediately was met with resistance by Republican governors, who declined the expansion in their states of Medicaid benefits to a wider spectrum of individuals, one of the key provisions the Obama administration designed to reduce the number of uninsured Americans, widely estimated at 40 million at that time.

Free-market opponents concentrated on the ACA’s “individual mandate.” If an individual did not have health insurance through an employer or provided by a union or other group, the individual was required to purchase insurance or face a federal penalty. Health care exchanges were to provide such insurance at reasonable prices for working class and middle-class Americans, but they depended on a large membership pool in order to control costs.

Conservative Republicans also tackled the ACA during the second Obama administration from a “culture wars” perspective. They scored a victory in Burwell vs. Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. (2014), as the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby, 6-3, that a business owned by individuals with “sincere Christian beliefs” could not be compelled to include contraceptive services among its employees’ health insurance benefits (cited by the Legal Information Institute of the Cornell Law School).

Small businesses often do not include health insurance among their employees’ benefits; an organization of small businesses challenged the individual mandate in 2012 in National Federation of Independent Businesses vs. Sibelius. The Supreme Court upheld the mandate in a 5-4 vote (fact-checking source: Wikipedia). But Republican opponents were tenacious.

Even before he took office in January 2017, Donald J. Trump vowed to dismantle Obamacare and replace it with a “better” plan of his own (which failed to materialize during his four years as president). Meanwhile, the Republican-led Congress in its budget bill for fiscal year 2017 cut the penalty for failing to fulfill the requirement to have health insurance coverage to $0.

Two popular planks in the ACA that remain are the rule preventing health insurance companies from denying new customers because of “pre-existing conditions,” and the rule that requires employer-provided insurance to continue to protect the children of families covered up to age 26. Democrats used Trump’s promise to dismantle the entire ACA, and thus remove those provisions, as a cudgel in opposing his re-election last year.

While Republican plans to fully dismantle the ACA have faded since Trump’s loss last November, progressive forces on Capitol Hill led by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-VT, (who caucuses with Democrats) continue to push for universal health care for the entire country. They argue that the richest country on Earth should offer free, single-payer health care for anyone in the U.S. and relegate private health insurance as a so-called “Cadillac plan” option for well-off Americans for elective surgeries and procedures and unlimited choice of providers. As a splintered GOP concentrates on more immediate matters, the moderate wing of the Democratic party, led by President Biden, promises to repair and update the ACA rather than completely starting anew as Sanders and his progressive colleagues would prefer.

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Email your comments and opinions on the resolution, “Should government provide healthcare for all citizens?” to editors@thehustings.news … We will post all comments that meet our standards (click on “About”) in the left and right columns over the weekend. Comments must meet the Braver Angels’ and The Hustings’ standards for civil discourse, and may be edited for length and clarity.

Opening Arguments Against Government-Provided Health Care

Editor’s note: Opening speakers in the negative for the Allegany County, Maryland, Day of Civility April 8 debate resolution, “Should government provide health care for all citizens?” are Luke Phillips of Braver Angels, Isadore Johnson of Students for Liberty at the University of Connecticut, and Grega Wagley and Connor Murnane, of ACTA.

Here are some talking points for the negatives’ opening arguments in the debate…

Conservatives opposed to government-guaranteed health care are in at a sort of crossroads after the Trump administration. As noted in the center column, President Trump famously tried to dismantle the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act – “Obamacare” – for pretty much the entirety in his four years in office, as he reversed other Obama administration programs mostly by executive order.

The question now for advocates of the free-market system of health care in the U.S. is whether conservatives on Capitol Hill should continue to work to reverse what they can of Obamacare, or whether their effort should concentrate on preventing the Biden administration from restoring, for example, the federal penalty for the working uninsured who do not comply with the ACA’s “individual mandate.” The mandate was made ineffective when the Republican-controlled Congress reduced the federal penalty to $0 in 2017.

The negative position on this resolution centers on a constant fight against government-provided universal health care – a “single-payer” plan that would be closer to the systems found in Canada and Great Britain, but considering the close party counts in the House of Representatives and the tie-breaker-thin margin in the Senate, such progressive programs are unlikely until the 2022 midterm elections, if then.

Given the popularity of the pre-existing condition provision, and the ability of parents to keep adult children on their health insurance to age 26, a further rollback of the ACA seems unlikely. Opposition to Obamacare, after all, does not mean conservatives aren’t interested in reforming health care. The conservative approach to health care reform centers on these policy issues …

•Cap damage awards against healthcare providers ordered by “activist” judges

•Promote health insurance vs. pharmaceutical company competition.

•Reform the Medicare payment system.

•Establish clear standards of care.

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Send Lawyers, Guns and Money

By Stephen Macaulay

According to the American Revolution Institute of the Society of the Cincinnati, “At the beginning of the Revolution, the army relied on soldiers to bring weapons from home, including hunting guns, militia arms and outdated martial weapons from the French and Indian War.”

Pop Quiz: What Was the French and Indian War?*

One of the weapons that was widely used in the Revolutionary War was the Long Land Pattern Musket, a.k.a., “Brown Bess.”

According an article on the smoothbore muzzleloader in the Revolutionary War Journal, the weapon was three feet, eight inches long and weighed approximately 14 pounds. Not the sort of thing that could readily be concealed, were one so inclined.

Apparently the gun wasn’t particularly accurate. The author of the Revolutionary War Journal story, Harry Schenawolf, writes, “Major George Hanger, an authority at the time, declared that when ‘firing at a man beyond a hundred and fifty yards one might as well fire at the moon.’”

Pop Quiz: How Far, in Yards, is the Moon from the Earth?**

Schenawolf goes on to write about the Brown Bess in action, which is worth quoting at length:

“Fast, not accurate firing was required of the British soldier standing in long ranks while facing the enemy at a hundred yards over an open field. The average soldier was expected to release three volleys per minute; four was exceptional. After the first volley, troops usually took from twenty to thirty seconds to reload. Upon loosing the second volley, they would reload and the third volley would occur a minute after the first. Defending troops were expected to release two volleys in the twenty-some seconds it would take their enemy to cover a hundred yards at a dead run. The second volley would hopefully be fired at less than thirty yards.”

So it was the Brown Bess that was the firearm of choice when these words were written in the Second Amendment: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

There are those who argue what is called the “individual right theory,” which has it that because of the phrase “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms,” the State can’t unduly interfere with one’s gun ownership.

There are those who argue what is called the “collective rights theory,” which has it that personal weaponry is primarily for purposes of a “well regulated Militia.”

Pop Quiz: What Is Wrong with the Phrase at the End of the Preceding Paragraph?***

I would like to propose the “Brown Bess theory,” which has it that the Framers had no idea, clever though they may have been, probably couldn’t have imagined something like an AR-15, which is apparently not accurate (but probably better than the Brown Bess), but which, according to the site Sharpshooter Academy can fire “as fast as someone can pull the trigger (anywhere between 45-60 rounds per minute). If a Brown Bess could fire three rounds per minute, then it would take 20 minutes to get off 60 rounds (although the barrel of the musket would have been exceedingly hot, so that wouldn’t like happen).

So if we’re going to interpret the Constitution in a way that goes back to what the Framers knew, then let’s put it in the context of the Brown Bess.

This is not about taking people’s guns away. It is about looking at the availability of what are arguably weapons of mass destruction that are too readily at hand for hands that they don’t belong in.

*No, it wasn’t the French fighting Indians. It was the French fighting the British—about the upper Ohio River Valley—with the Indians fighting along with the French (and some with the Brits). It began in 1754 and ended in 1763 in favor of the Brits, and given costs borne by the colonists, this was a factor that led to the American Revolution. People who harken to the rights they find in the Second Amendment should be required to know from whence it came.

**No one who doesn’t work at NASA ought to know the answer to this one—420,464,000—but given the absurdity of what passes for knowledge in some parts of Congress, the silliness of this is at least benign, not potentially deadly.

*** “well regulated” form a compound adjective, so there should be a hyphen between the two words, which I point out because there tends to be a lot of questioning about the commas in that sentence. Clearly the Framers weren’t necessarily masters of grammar.

A Revolution in Arms: Weapons in the War for Independence - The American Revolution Institute

Loading and Firing a Brown Bess Musket in the Eighteenth Century – Revolutionary War Journal

Demystifying The AR-15 - (sharpshooteracademy.com)

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We Debate the Second Amendment and Guns

By Todd Lassa

Tighter gun regulation was on President Biden’s agenda even before two mass shootings — which occurred less than a week apart -- fueled familiar rhetoric from both sides of the argument. But “gun control,” a term The New York Times editorial columnist Frank Bruni suggests should be abolished from advocates’ vocabulary, is not at the top of Biden’s priorities. The president indicated in his first press conference, March 25, that he would have to take a pragmatic approach to his agenda while dealing with a Democratic majority in the Senate so slim that his party can’t afford to lose one of its members, let alone subject bills such as the two passed in the House (one on strengthening gun licensing, the other background checks) to filibuster.

Following the March 16 deaths of eight people at Atlanta-area massage parlors, and the March 22 deaths of 10 people at a Boulder, Colorado, supermarket, pro-regulation Democrats and Second Amendment absolutist Republicans in the Senate took to familiar arguments.

Politicians need to “offer more than thoughts and prayers” for survivors of the mass shootings, said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-IL; To which Sen. Ted Cruz, R-TX, responded that he will not apologize for “thoughts and prayers.”

Standard arguments come down to a pro-gun regulation side that says that better licensing and background checks could stem fatalities in what is the most heavily armed first-world country in the world, while pro-Second Amendment advocates say the problem is lack of enforcement of existing laws, and that mental health issues, and not firearms, must be better-regulated. The “slippery slope” argument that a bit of gun regulation will eventually lead to full-on bans underlies Second Amendment absolutists’ point-of-view.

While gun regulation advocates point to the “outdated” wording that the Second Amendment allows firearms for a “well regulated militia,” the other side argues that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia settled the matter in writing the majority opinion in the District of Columbia vs. Heller, in which a Washington police officer challenged a District law that would have prohibited him from keeping a gun in his own home.

The amendment’s wording “in no way connotes participation in a structured military organization,” Scalia wrote for the 5-4 majority in the 2008 ruling.

The National Rifle Association, which usually responds to events like those in Atlanta and Boulder with a full-throated support of gun ownership, reacted to the uproar over the latest mass shootings only by repeating, on its official Twitter account, that “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, should not be infringed.”

This time, another favorite NRA argument, that “a good guy with a gun” is the best way to solve the problem of “a bad guy with a gun” was not raised. Among the 10 victims in the Boulder supermarket shooting was Officer Eric Talley.

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An Appeal to Reason, and Reasonable Gun Control

By Andrew Boyd

First off, I’d like to suggest we set aside absolutism in order to have a meaningful discussion around gun rights. There are few if any ways in which appeal to absolute rights are useful. We have the right to free speech, but it has its limitations, most notably the incitement of violence. I have some problems with that one, in that speech of one does not equate to action of another, and people with agency (that is, people), are responsible for their actions as individuals, but I can understand the argument for such a constraint. Collectivism or socialism is another hot one. In reality, we practice collectivism in many areas of law, regulation and economic cooperation. The argument revolves around how much collectivism and at what cost to liberty.

Such is the debate around gun control. Few people will argue that the Second Amendment prevents the government, the collective, from placing constraints on the individual. You can’t own a tank, a missile, a bazooka, or a mortar. These are arms, but not something that, collectively, we feel would be of net benefit to the polity in the hands of private citizens. So, the right to bear arms does not appear to be absolute as we practice it today.

Second, let’s abolish terms that serve no purpose but to obfuscate, namely “military-style assault weapons.” No one has ever made a reasonable attempt to define these terms. An AR-15 is a military-style weapon in aesthetics only. It’s one of hundreds of types of semi-automatic long rifles that offer the same levels of lethality to the user, regardless of their appearance. It does not have selectable burst or fully-automatic fire, as does an M-14 military rifle. If you want to ban the AR-15 on any objective standard, you’re banning all semi-auto long rifles. If that’s your poison, so be it. A bolt-action rifle is plenty good for hunting. What about semi-automatic single action handguns, whose lethality is not so much different given a bullet of similar caliber? Yes, less velocity and long-range accuracy, but more easily concealed.

What about capacity, then? We can decide on capacity limits as a function of lethality, which seems not all that intrusive to me. Six, eight, 10? Somewhere in there is fine with me. My line, as pertains to 2A, is my capacity to mount a defense against a home invader. My Glock 17 with single stack magazine, holding eight rounds, and the capacity to exchange magazines with relative alacrity is sufficient to me, as is my Remington 12-gauge shotgun with a seven-shell capacity.

As to the rules for buying a gun, I’m all for criminal background checks and the closing of any loopholes that allow the avoidance of same. And if you want a federal gun registry, that also doesn’t seem all that unreasonable to me. I’ll go further and suggest it wouldn’t be a terrible thing for someone purchasing a gun to have demonstrated some level of proficiency in handling, safety and use, much like we require with a driver’s license.

Will any of that substantially reduced incidents of gun violence? I don’t think so. Will it reduce the capacity of individuals to protect themselves and their property? Also, not substantially to my mind. So, will it have changed anything? I’m afraid not, but I’m prepared to accept these as reasonable constraints on my Second Amendment rights. Is that enough from the leftist perspective? I can’t really answer that definitively, but I suspect that what the left is really aiming for is the complete abolishment of guns held legally, and that I feel is only giving criminals greater freedom to steal, rape, maim and kill.

Add in defund or defang the police, unsubstantiated claims of systemic and widespread racial animus in policing, and the selective application of red-letter law, as I believe we’re seeing now in the investigative and prosecutorial actions of law enforcement with respect to the awful, terrible January 6 Capitol Hill incursion and the BLM/Antifa summer of mayhem, and you’re getting perilously close to a hill I’m prepared to die on.

Leftists must decide on what principals they stand, as must we all.

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Relearning American Humanity

By Michelle Naranjo

In a small community on the steps of Pennsylvania coal country, there is a rumor being spread via social media that an empty decommissioned hospital slated for destruction due to the presence of asbestos and black mold is being kitted out with new beds and will soon become housing for immigrants making their way into the U.S.

The initial report of this came from someone who claims a cousin delivering the beds to said hospital enquired about the activity, and a worker allegedly told him of the plan. The comments on posts about this range from residents ranting about Biden "opening the border," to those who believe that the migrants will bring the "China virus" with them, to a few who find the less-than-kind reactions racist and cruel.

To be clear, migrants reaching the border tested for Covid-19 have a less than 6% positive rate. Legal residents in the border states, save California, are not faring as well. Texas is at 9%, New Mexico is at 8%, and Arizona is at 11%.

Sadly, rumors of this kind are in every state of the U.S. and are just a sign of the poor communication around the growing migration from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador.

Meanwhile, Biden and senior staff members are gunfire-at-the-feet dancing to avoid referring to the surge of migrants at the border as a crisis, and Republican critics are taking the opportunity to use the rising numbers to slam the nascent administration as a failure. The administration isn't doing itself any favors by rallying around the narrative that the growing crisis is the previous administration's fault.

Democratic Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, following a visit to the El Paso, Texas U.S. Customs and Border Protection processing center as part of a bipartisan congressional tour, has called on the Biden administration to be more transparent with Americans about what is happening at the border.

While there is much to be gained by being honest with the media and citizens, it would also be an opportune time for Biden et. al. to reiterate America's humanitarian tradition and take a giant step towards reviving it.

Biden has only been in office long enough for one month of border statistics to come to light, but setting the tone now is imperative. Allowing a humanitarian crisis to dissolve into disinformation and rumors amid the ongoing turmoil of over 500,000 deaths from COVID-19, a year of massive unemployment, and a timbre that is no longer keeping the racist undertones of the U.S. quiet.

Rescinding the policy of returning migrant children traveling alone encountered to the other side of the border was the right thing for Biden to do. So is sending assistance to the countries losing their citizens to migration because of strained economies, weather-related disasters, political corruption, and drug and gang-related violence. Biden needs to give the press and American citizens an ongoing and clear explanation of why it is in our best interest to protect migrants at risk since so many of us seem to have gone dark on what it means to have the U.S. act a leader in human rights.

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Enduring Immigration Issue: Can it be Fixed?

By Todd Lassa

Four-and-a-half years ago, candidate Donald J. Trump promised that if he were elected president, he would “build the wall” on the Southern border, and “make Mexico pay for it.” President Trump ended his single term in office with about 365 miles of new fence that replaced existing dilapidated and outdated fencing, about 40 miles of new primary wall, plus 33 miles of secondary wall where there was none before, factcheck.org reports, quoting the Customs & Border Protection service. This means 73 miles new build. The price tag is an estimated $15-billion. Mexico paid for none of it.

Now President Biden is actually negotiating a own border deal with Mexico. The U.S. is offering excess supply of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine in exchange for Mexico “moving to help the U.S. contain a migration surge along its southern border,” The Washington Post says, citing “senior officials” from both countries. (The U.S. also will extend the vaccine deal to Canada, though obviously without any quid pro quo on help with border security.)

The deal is being negotiated as the Biden administration tries to stem the flow of children and teenagers trying to cross the U.S. border from Mexico and other points south. Biden signed numerous executive orders his first few days in office to reverse President Trump’s strict border control measures.

Republicans are quick to connect this latest crisis to Biden’s laissez-faire immigration policy and reversal of Trump executive orders. Immigrant children are arriving at the southern border without their parents. Under the Trump administration, more than 600 children and teenagers were separated from their families as their parents were thrown out of the U.S. in 2018, explicitly to deter illegal immigration.

On Monday, March 15, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-CA, led a bi-partisan delegation to the border at El Paso, Texas, to call attention to the latest flood of illegal immigrants trying to cross the border, a scene that Democrats criticized as a “photo op.”

The numbers of immigrants amassing at the border has, indeed, reached its highest monthly level, NPR reports, since 2019. Immigrants are flowing north primarily from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, NPR reporter Carrie Kahn said, fleeing “high levels” of violence, gangs and poverty, with promises made by human smugglers, while relatives already in the U.S. advise on whether they can find jobs here. The Biden administration seeks $4 billion in aid for these countries to spend on police training and judicial reform.

Proponents of a comprehensive immigration and asylum plan lament legislation proposed during George W. Bush’s and Barack Obama’s administrations, neither of which had a chance to make it through the Senate. Obama’s proposal was essentially an updated variation of the Bush plan.

Now, following an administration that sought to heavily restrict immigration via executive orders and to appease American workers fearful for their jobs, instead of the traditional Republican constituency of farms and businesses seeking low-cost labor, the Biden administration is working on a new asylum process.

Sen. Robert Menendez, D-NJ, and Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-CA, have introduced bills that seek …

•An eight-year path for undocumented immigrants to become citizens.

•Increases in the number of visas issued to immigrants per-country.

•Changing the term “alien” to “non-citizen.”

The House of Representatives began to take up this proposed legislation March 18. A bill offering legal status to “Dreamers” and migrants admitted for humanitarian reasons, Politico reports, passed by 228-197 vote. A bill offering similar protection to about 1 million farm workers -- estimated to be about half the nation’s agricultural workers – who have entered the U.S. illegally passed 247-174. The Senate will be a steeper climb. Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-SC, introduced a bi-partisan immigration bill in early February, but has more recently told Politico he won’t support “legalizing one person until you’re in control of the border.”

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Conservative Arguments for a More Liberal Border Policy

By Bryan Williams

No one likes a line-cutter. No one likes an unlevel playing field. At the same time, no one should like human suffering, families being torn apart, and the denial of that image Americans have of our country as one that welcomes in the tired, poor, and huddled masses yearning to be free.

Maybe I'm getting soft in my old age. Maybe it's the social worker in me and not the former Republican party operative. My thoughts on immigration policy have changed drastically in the last fifteen years or so. I have extended family that have entered the country extra-legally and legally, so I see both sides of this issue. I am also a social worker now, so I cannot deny the price in suffering that is paid for all those seeking to come to America.

This may be a simpleton's breakdown, but how does one's brain tackle such a complex subject? Anyway...here goes:

Dreamers should be allowed to become citizens now. That's only fair.

There should be a pathway to citizenship -- if it takes 8 years, so be it. That seems fair.

There should not be children taken from their parents.

There should be quick, decisive, and respectful investigations into those seeking asylum or those apprehended crossing the border illegally. None of this, "Wear this ankle bracelet and show up to court in 18 months," type of thing. Get real.

There should be accountability by employers -- no one here illegally should be employed.

Enough funds should be allocated to hire and properly train Border Patrol agents, customs officials, social workers, and funds allocated to the courts to efficiently process each person.

Criminal activity should be thwarted. No drugs, guns, or trafficked souls should enter into our country with an innocent pretense of "I just want a job in America," or "I want to reconnect with family."

And lastly, we should all think about the net benefits immigration has for our country. We should welcome people in with love. Of course, this should work for everyone - there needs to be more neighborliness in our lives! But especially those new to our country. By engaging with newcomers, we will help them assimilate faster, so they are not segregated by language and culture. Let's lift our lamps beside our golden door.

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