Dangerous Hobbies
When the Congress of the United States is determined to do its job, it gets some good results.
Unfortunately, as we have seen in the past few months, when a minority of the members of the Congress are determined to bring vitally needed legislation to a halt, they can be depressingly effective.
In either event, this is the Legislative Branch doing the job it is given in The Constitution. There are times, however, when the Legislative Branch has had enough with those assigned duties and decides to indulge in the hobby of preening before the media.
There's nothing wrong with a hobby. I have seen people whose entire self-image was tied up in their job fall to pieces when that job is gone. Over years of having a number of jobs where the margin for error approached absolute zero, I can attest to the validity of having something where one can do something completely unrelated to the tasks for which one is being paid. In my case, there were a couple of activities that alleviated tightly controlled jobs by giving me the chance to "make it up as I go along" or just to be bad at something. There's a whole posting on that process, and I'll probably get around to it eventually, but they point is that none of these activities endangered others; none of these reflected on my professional role; none of these used my professional standing to further my own ambitions.
In the Legislative Branch, such restrictions do not seem to apply. In 26 years of military service, I became familiar with the oversight role of various committees within the Senate and the House. Sometimes more familiar that I had planned on being, but that's for the book I'll write when the various statutes of limitations wear off. I have also watched the oversight responsibilities turn into well-publicized sniping contests.
While the relevant officials are a minimum of of months away from compiling a preliminary report on the recent events at Ft. Hood, Senator Lieberman is announcing a full, extremely public enquiry into why the great big evil Military did not manage to deal with the clear and present danger of having religious extremists in uniform. The goal is to prevent the possibility of this sort thing repeating anywhere in the dwindling number of military installations or in the surrounding civilian communities that depend upon them for economic survival.
I'm not sure where Senator Lieberman stands on the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy, but this kind of touching faith in the abilities of a legislative committee clearly suggests a devotion to various talismans, lucky charms, and incantations as a preventative for all kinds of Bad Things.
Chance, as they say, would be a fine thing, but in the 90's, after Dean Mellberg was discharged from the USAF, we had the same Congressional Circus. Did a lot of good, didn't it?
For those of you who don't remember, Mellberg took a bus from New Mexico to Spokane, Washington, bought a Chinese-made cpoy of the AK-47 from a licensed gun dealer who sells weapons from his garage (across the street from a high school), and went out to Fairchild AFB. He bought a 70-round magazine on the way from a gentleman who has a gun show booth on weekends and sold weapons through an "advance receipt" loophole. His goal was to shoot the psychiatric personnel who had suggested he should not have a career in the Air Force, he burst into their offices, shot them, and then walked through the hospital shooting military members and dependents ( children, spouses of active and retired personnel) until he was shot by a Security Policeman who had been on patrol in the housing area that bordered the hospital.
Congress held many meetings, demanding to know why we had discharged an obviously troop. Surely, quoth the solons of the oversight process, we could have held on to this poor lad, given him counseling, and then either allowed him to return, rehabilitated to duty or, at a minimum, send him out into the civilian world better for the entire process. Please note the touching faith large organizations seem to put on counseling. Doesn't work very well, but that's another posting.
We now have another clearly unbalanced military member who goes off base and buys a gun under a system that would never have showed he was on a watch list for possible terrorist sympathies, and, in any event, destroyed the record of the purchase within 24 hours of the check clearing. He returns to base, takes a few weeks to think it over, then walks into a building where troops are in processing and evaluation activities (no guns, other than a couple of "contract security personnel"), and opens fire. He had purchased extra magazines and ammunition (again, perfectly legally) for this weapon, known in the popular press as The Cop Killer, so he was able to keep up a pretty much steady rate of fire until the two contract cops opened fire (in disputed order, and with disputed individual shot effect) and rendered him harmless.
Congress, of course, has two vital roles at this point.
First, they must find many reasons why anybody would have used an easily purchased weapon and related accessories WITHOUT any finding that might involve data that might indicate any form of limiting the access of citizens (or resident aliens, or visitors from just about anywhere, or anyone who can pass a rigorous examination of his/her/their wallet/bank balance) from purchasing weapons in any quantity they can afford.
Second, they need to find many, many ways of identifying this crime as (drum roll) AN ACT OF TERROR (massive echo effect). That way we can keep the populace sufficiently scared of every single member of any Islamic Religious group. It's much easier than trying to deal with the issue of terrorism as the criminal activity it truly is. Senators and Representatives run for re-election frequently, and anyone who offers any solution (to any problem) that cannot be stated on a bumper sticker is not likely to carry the Center, Center-Right, Right, Far Right, or Fring elements of the electorate. This means while they cannot take the long view, they must always bear in mind that changing winds or popular opinion can morph todays reasonable action into tomorrow's basis for being characterized as "soft on .... fill in activity/cause here."
Are either of these in the Constitution? Of course not. The intended oversight was a watching brief over current and past actions. There is nothing requiring pre-emptive oversight nor do the various oversight committees have command responsibility. But hey..... if you do your job, represent as many of your constituents as possible (whether or not they voted for you), and follow the directions spelled out in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Amendments, you will never get five minutes of TV time with O'Reilly, or Beck, or Olberman, or Maddow, or even Rose. And that would make it harder to raise money, where all happiness, security, and solace are contained.
posted by MikeCarter @ 13:53
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