Post-Sandy Hook, GOP can lead, follow, or disappear

A couple of years back, I blogged about the GOP's craven transformation of once non-partisan issues into partisan wedge issues. Gun control was number-one, followed by the environment, immigration, civil rights, and campaign finance reform. Recently, the more Congressional Republicans push their partisan buttons on basic common-sense issues, the more they lose at the voting booth and in demographic projections of party allegiance.

This is good news, not because Democrats are more deserving than Republicans, but because in the end America needs practical solutions. The unspeakable tragedy that occurred last Friday may finally pull us -- and even the Republican Party -- back from the brink of the gun lobby's stranglehold on even basic measures like uniform background checks and a general ban on assault weapons. If the GOP maintains its blanket opposition to any further gun restrictions, that will further exacerbate its own failure to relate to the majority of Americans, even many of its own supporters.

If, with President Obama's leadership on the issue, our nation can succeed on gun control, we might have enough momentum to apply people power against well-organized big money in the other areas as well. It is too late to avert widespread environmental catastrophe during the 21st century, but it is never too late to start instituting serious emission controls and other regulations and incentives to minimize the kind devastation and dislocation that scientific consensus has been predicting for years.

Either the GOP joins up, or it continues its long-term decline as a political force -- analogous to the resulting inevitability of climate change. But we must succeed in addressing these issues regardless. And either way, our children and our grandchildren will be a little less disadvantaged. In the meantime, I'm taking my kids to visit glaciers before it really is too late.

Arizona - Will leaders be accountable, or just pray?

The full spectrum of American politics is outraged and disgusted by Saturday’s shooting in Tucson. A federal judge and nine-year-old girl are dead, among others, and a Congresswoman and others are in critical condition, fighting for their lives. I pray for the victims and their families. 

Leaders who are unwilling to denounce hate speech or to adopt policies that curb gun violence cannot gain absolution with condolences and expressions of horror when attacks occur. They may not be directly responsible, but these attacks do not occur in a vacuum. If leaders are held accountable for what happens on their watch, they will be better leaders, and our streets will be safer. 

Anyone who says gun violence is "senseless" but cannot support sensible gun regulation should not be taken seriously. Rejecting the culture of hatred and violence has to happen BEFORE an attack takes place. The past year included campaign “target” lists with gun-style crosshairs marking map locations including Representative Gabrielle Giffords’ district; fundraisers where donors got to fire guns at targets with faces including that of Representative Giffords; incendiary rhetoric and pandering legislation allowing Arizona police to stop anyone who looks like an illegal immigrant; a new expansive Arizona law allowing a concealed weapon WITHOUT A PERMIT. Representative Giffords, a centrist Democrat who supported the recent Health Care Reform Bill, is herself a gun owner and gun-rights supporter.

Our national and local rhetoric consistently demonizes political opponents and glorifies the right to violence. The rate of gun deaths in America in 2005 was over 10,000. Sensible gun regulation is just that -- sensible. Calls for violence against the government and its officials -- not just the violence itself -- should be denounced and prosecuted. We need to break free of a political culture driven by fear and threats.