Republicans Continue to Elevate Level of Discourse

The Republican National Committee will conclude a special session with a much-anticipated vote on a resolution to re-brand the Democratic Party as the "Democrat Socialist Party."

ANP senior producer Harry Hanbury roamed the RNC meeting with a camera and spoke with committeemen and state chairs to hear their thoughts on the vote and their ideas about both parties.

Via Oliver Willis, via Crooks and Liars.


At this point, I might actually prefer them to call us the "Socialist Party" over the grammatically incorrect Democrat Party they've insisted on for the last century. It would still highlight their immaturity but without grating on the ear as much. I wonder if we can convince them to go with that.

I like Willis's take, too:

I should point out the equivalent of this would have been, in May of 2001, if the Democratic party convened and decided whether we would call the Republican party the Poophead Party or the Crappy Pants Party.

Funny, but it'd be more like if the Democrats got together and tried to pass a serious resolution "rebranding" the Republicans as the "Republican Nazi Party."

Today's Shooting and Gun Control

Would today's tragedy have been prevented or lessened if students and teachers were allowed to carry guns?

The right-wing blogs think so. And maybe they're right. Or maybe fifteen other students would have pulled guns and started mistaking each other for the first shooter and escalated the problem.

And maybe there would be a lot more suicides the 99.9999% of the time there is not a crazed gunman on campus. And more single and double homicides. And accidents.

Would today's tragedy have been prevented if guns were banned?

The left-wing blogs think so. And maybe they're right. Or maybe a war on guns would be as ineffective as the war on drugs, only less Constitutional. From some reports, at least one of the guns used today has already been banned.

Making policies based on exceptional circumstances is foolish.

There are about 400,000 crimes, more than 10,000 homicides, and more than 15,000 suicides committed with firearms every year in the United States. Almost none of them are school shootings in the manner of Virginia Tech or Columbine.

Policies must be targetted sensibly.

Our country seems particularly bad at this. We've banned knitting needles from planes but allow 16-year-olds to drive cars. Growing medical marijuana can land you in jail, but cigarettes are available at every 7-11.

How about we start basing some decisions on data? Focusing on mental health from a public policy perspective could probably save thousands of lives a year while debating the gun control issue will just waste a bunch of time and money. I can't tell you how many people I've known with clinical depression or anxiety that couldn't get (or at least thought they couldn't get) treatment because they didn't have sufficient insurance. How many veterans and ex-police officers are out there with untreated mental issues and the training to kill efficiently?

I don't know how we can get public debate to become more reasonable in the age of cable news and vacuous politics. I guess we can at least start with ourselves. Quit shouting slogans and start using reason. Stop focusing on anecdotes and start working with data.