Buy a Shotgun

Joe Biden, the esteemed vice-president of the United States, in pushing the firearm agenda of the Obama administration says that we should buy a shotgun. Now, I have no real issue with this comment.  In fact, I have told people for years, if you are not going to take the time and make the effort to be proficient in the use of a handgun or rifle, and still want to defend yourself, buy a shotgun.  Of course, my buy a shotgun is apparently different than that of VP Biden, who wants you to have a single-barrel, single-shot or at best a double-barrel shotgun.

"We live in an area that's wooded and secluded," Biden said. "I said, Jill, if there's ever a problem just walk out on the balcony here ... put that double-barreled shotgun and fire two blasts outside the house."

"I promise you whoever's coming in is not gonna," Biden said. "You don't need an AR-15 (assault rifle). It's harder to aim. It's harder to use and in fact you don't need 30 rounds to protect yourself."
"Buy a shotgun," he said, lowering his voice almost to whisper.

Well, let's stop and think about this for a minute VP Biden.  "Fire two blasts outside the house."  Fire at what, do you aim, or just fire off both barrels?  Once you have fired those two barrels into the air, what happens next?  Most people are not going to be proficient at rapid reloading of shotguns.  I can fire about 6 rounds per minute with a single-barrel, if I hold shells between my lips and between my fingers when I start the process.  And what did you hit if you just blasted off two rounds?  

Sorry VP Biden, but while the shotgun idea is sound, what is more sound is to buy a pump action or semi-automatic shotgun that holds five or more 2 3/4 or 3 inch shells loaded with buck shot.  What is even more sound is to aim at the intruder in the window, doorway, hallway through which they are invading your personal space/private property, not to go outside the house and fire off two rounds (which assumes you are going to hear the intruder coming and hear them outside your home).  Even more sound is having aimed at the intruder to shoot the intruder.  Of course this is only my two cents worth of thought, and I pray to God that no person has to make these sound decisions, ever.  

Academic Writing vs. Public Writing

Since most of the pointy-headed academics types (full disclosure:  this statement refers to myself) read the same blogs and works when they do research in the same or similar areas, I am not surprised to find my mentor, Steve Saideman, commenting upon this recent blog from Stephen Walt.  I am also not surprised to find Steve pointing us back to Drezner and to the response to Walt by Ulfelder.  You can read Saideman's response to Walt here.  And of course, here is my two cents on the Walt comments.

First, the conversation regarding writing well in academia is as old as writing in the academy.  So, if anyone expected something earth-shattering or new, forget about it.  Walt gives a restatement and his own opinion, but not a new argument.

I have personally found writing in general to be poor stylistically and grammatically in the last several years of my academic career.  My own writing suffers from issues of style and clarity, that I must work very hard to overcome.  So, my own argument is that we simply do not work carefully enough on our writing.  More to come on this issue.

What does Walt get right?  Well, what we are writing about is often difficult to express with great ease and clarity for the general public.  But, that is the general public.  I think Walt fails to account for the intended audience of the written work.

Walt considers logic of discovery and logic of presentation.  Well, logic of discovery is appropriate in the language of the written work or oral presentation if one is writing to other academics or students of the subject matter.  Logic of presentation is appropriate if you are writing to a general audience that is not versed in the "jargon" of the academic discipline which the written work is attempting to engage. 

Walt himself makes this point, but seems to ignore it in his critique of writing well:

"really effective writing involves sitting down and thinking hard about the best way to present that argument to the reader."

Well, to whom am I writing.  If I am writing to other political scientists who study conflict processes (ethnic conflict, civil wars) and political violence (terrorism and counter-terrorism) I use a different prose and metric of writing than if I am writing to my mom and dad about the discoveries I have made in my research.  I would also write differently to policy-makers than to my mom and dad about the same discoveries.  I mean by questioning how well we write to question how well we edit our work for the intended audience.  We academics often forget to ask who the reader is before submitting work for consumption--or maybe I am just writing about myself.  However, what we academics need to further ensure is that in addition to crafting the work for the intended reader is that we grammatically craft our work properly, period.   

China and Tibetan Self-Immolations

So, according to my count from various sites, Tibetan self-immolations hit 100 last year.  According to this article the number is approaching 100.  But more importantly look at what the Chinese are doing in response to Tibetan self-immolation.  Over 70 arrests of people who are inciting the self-immolations and continued denunciation of the Dalai Lama, apparently this is the best the Chinese can do.

Here's my two cents.  The Chinese government might want to investigate why 100 people were willing to set themselves on fire.  The Chinese government might find that some policies can be altered in ways that change the socio-econonomic and socio-political landscape in Tibet.  Policy might even be changed without the Chinese government losing control of the territory.

DOJ White Paper on Targeting U.S. Citizens

I have previously addressed what I consider to be the constitutional issue of killing Anwar Al-Awlaki.  So anyone who knows what I have written and what I stand for knows that I believe in a tight reading and application of the U.S. Constitution.  But, here we go again, thank you DOJ for ensuring that I continue to view my government with suspicion and disgust.

In as few words as possible, the best way to understand the DOJs determination in the white paper is stated by Rosa Brooks at foreignpolicy.com:

"If you were worried about whether it was okay for the U.S. government to kill an American citizen overseas, you can relax: The Justice Department says such killings are hunky dory, as long as some "informed, high-level official" decides that citizen poses and "imminent threat" and capture would be "unfeasible"."  (read the article here)

Kudos to Brooks for then tearing apart, cleanly, and systematically the logic of the papers key claims.  Paramount within these claims are that a senior official can make the decision, and that imminent threat may not actually mean something that we know will happen soon, or even ever.  Who is a senior official?  And, what happened to imminent meaning right now and threat meaning something that will really happen?

Of course, my biggest problem is still that the 4th and 5th amendments to the U.S. Constitution are violated.  I could care less about what Pakistan thinks about us striking targets inside Pakistan, but can those targets include U.S. citizens--not without a trial and a finding by a court that this U.S. citizen is guilty of a crime.  And even then, execution requires a finding of guilty of a capital offense and that proper procedure be followed in the carrying out of the sentence--is death by drone strike cruel and unusual?