Timothy P. Niedermann's Blog

Now that there is a cease-free in Gaza that is holding (for the moment), each side is preparing their list of demands for a negotiated “peace.” At a minimum, Israel wants a demilitarized Hamas, and Hamas wants release of import restrictions to Gaza. Both of these demands are reasonable. We’ll see how far they get. No matter what sort of an agreement is reached, it is unlikely to address the fundamental issue of the creation of some sort of Palestinian state where its citizens enjoy full rights.

Netanyahu has recently made plain he has no interest in a two-state solution, and given the strength of the settler movement, the status quo will not be changed by Israel.

So someone else must make the first move. Hamas are the players of the moment, so it’s in their court. What should they do? If Hamas really wanted to change things, they would propose the following: that Gaza be made part of Israel and that elections be held so that representatives from Gaza could sit in the Knesset. Such representatives could be members of a demilitarized Hamas, but should have no past direct connection with violent acts against Israel (a tall order perhaps, but necessary). The 1.8 million residents of Gaza would become Israeli citizens.

This simple demand would inevitably force Israelis to focus on the unmentionable 800-lb gorilla in the room: the idea that Israel must be a “Jewish state.” Everyone has an opinion on this, but there has never been a single operating legal definition. It is time to have one. And such a debate—an open, nation-wide debate on what the term “Jewish state” means—may be crucial for the survival of Israel itself, for it is plain that internal divisions are pushing Israelis toward potentially violent confrontations between left and right, mostly over the issue of the West Bank settlements.
There will be resistance to this, because it is fairly self-evident that the insistence on a permanent, legislated ethnic/religious majority (be it Jewish, Sunni, Shia, or what have you) is incompatible with modern notions of human rights. The examples are well known and all too numerous. But it must happen.

Though this debate would be uncomfortable, it would be cathartic for Israelis—in a positive way. Israelis, not outsiders, would be the ones defining themselves (no doubt there would be lots of input from all sides, but that is a positive as well). They would have an opportunity to declare specifically what they stand for as a nation.

But the best way to bring this about is if the Palestinians ask for it—if they show they want to be part of a state where all citizens have equal rights under the law, instead of this polarized, violent limbo that exists now.

Too bad they won’t.

The Israeli government has hammered on Israel’s “right to exist,” and the phrase has been taken up across the world's media. Recently Israel added the condition to any peace deal with the Palestinian Authority that the Palestinians affirmatively recognize Israel’s right to exist, something that has not been a part of previous negotiations. To some this would seem rather basic, merely an expression of acceptance that Israel is a sovereign nation, in place, sharing the rights that any sovereign nation enjoys. But in truth, this is a slippery phrase. No nation possesses a “right to exist”; the concept does not exist in modern international law. The closest thing in international law is the principle of “territorial integrity,” which means that nations may not promote secessionism in their neighbors, such as Russia has done by its recent takeover of Crimea and its continuing activity against Ukraine. What this amounts to is that all sovereign nations enjoy a right not to be attacked with the intent to alter their physical existence. So far so good.
But the issue in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute has its own unique character. What it means to many Israelis, in particular the settler movement and their supporters, is not just that Israel should not be attacked, but that Israel has an a priori right to exist, meaning that Israel has the right to exist as a nation-state in preference of to any other type of nation state in the same physical space. This claim is rooted, of course, in the Zionist notion that God gave that land to the Jews. Apart from the fact that the Bible does not say that—it says that God gave the land to “Abraham and his seed,” which would actually include the Palestinians—the notion of any a priori right of a given type of nation-state to exist is nonsense. The existence of every nation is contingent on the way it treats its people. Americans should feel this acutely, as the existence of the United States itself is a result of the British home country treating the colonists as inferior, a convenient source of tax revenue with no need for inclusion in parliament. We know what happened.
Israel wants the world to accept that Jews (as defined by Israel’s Orthodox Rabbinate, itself a prime example of religious discrimination—against non-Orthodox Jews!) have a superior right over anyone else to the area variously called the “Nation of Israel,” “the Holy Land,” “Judea and Samaria,” and “Palestine.” The names alone reveal the nature of the core issue: religious belief masquerading as law.
For any group to claim an inherent ethnic superiority in any fashion is reprehensible. History has seen the like often enough. Just in the last two hundred years we have had two horrific examples: Manifest Destiny and Lebensraum. These were excuses for genocide, nothing more. Now we have the “right to exist.” Time to enforce the notion, much neglected in certain parts of the world, that “all men are created equal, [and] are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Even Palestinians.

The One-State Solution

The situation between Israel and the Palestinians has gone from bad to worse yet again, and people despair of ever establishing a permanent peace. Yet there is a solution. No, not the two-state solution, and certainly not the Greater Israel sought by the extremist Zionist settlers and their backers. Nor is it Hamas’s goal of an Islamic state replacing the Jewish one. The two-state solution is dead for one main reason: it won’t work. It would simply perpetuate the status quo of two people fighting reflexively over everything: security, water, harbors and airports, jobs, everything. The two-state solution gives Israel no improvement in border security, so Israel would have to maintain control over all borders—its own and the Palestinian state’s. As such, there is no way an independent Palestine would ever be free of Israel’s effective hegemony. The two ethnically cleansed versions—Zionist and Islamic—are obviously no good (even though Hamas says an Islamic state would safeguard adherents of all three Abrahamic religions, replacing pervasive Judaism with pervasive Islam would likely just as bad or worse). In all these scenarios, there would be no resolution of the underlying conflicts. Violence would continue. Religious extremists would have undue influence on politics, and the two minority religions would be marginalized, as is the case now. Hate would fester and erupt violently from time to time. More innocents would be killed, and no peace would be achieved.
There is only one choice left: the secular one-state solution. It is the only even potentially viable option of the four. The one-state solution gives everyone what they want, in fact (land, security, religious freedom)—but they will have to share.
Instead of looking backward to the crimes and mythology of the past, the population would have to be encouraged to look forward. Most want this already. This would be the creation of a new, inclusive nation of Israel (the name is OK—according to the Bible, in ancient times it was a pagan state, reviled in the Bible for its worship of foreign gods). Reconciliation could become a common national effort to compensate for the errors of the past on both sides—rebuild destroyed villages, bond through their mutual history in ancient times, create a sense of common rootedness in the land.
The territory would consist of Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank—one state from Jordan to the sea. There would be free movement of people, and everyone would be equal under the law. Palestinian refugees would be allowed to return. This would take place over several years because there would have to be a system of reparations for land taken in 1948 within the present boundaries of Israel. The post-1967 West Bank settlements are all illegal under international law, and so would have to be condemned. But there could be a system where the settlers could purchase (at—as a matter of justice—current fair market value, as improved land) their buildings from whoever was the owner or legitimate occupier of the land when it was taken (or their heirs). Older settlements might be given an actual right to purchase, but more recent settlements would have to negotiate. Palestinians basically would have the choice to get the land back or receive adequate payment.
Given the mistrust that has infected both peoples, the form of government must contain enough checks and balances to prevent government abuses against ethnic and religious minorities. So, a written constitution must come first, with universal guarantees of equality under the law and free exercise of religion—and no single established religion. Leave religion as a matter of individual conscience. (Please note that the U.S. from whose constitution these phrases are taken, has a very strong, even vibrant religious population.) Given that Jewish population and the Muslim population (with a few Christian Arabs thrown in) would be roughly equal, this has at least a promising starting-off point. But the present system of government in Israel simply will not do as a template. It uses a structure of proportional representation (only Italy, not a paragon of good government, has the same structure), which has historically meant that small minority (and extremist) parties become kingmakers. And a general parliamentary system is unlikely to guarantee necessary insulation from majoritarian abuse. But there is a paradigm to work from. Two hundred-odd years ago a bunch of rebels were confronted with a similar quandary (well, similar enough). So they came up with the “Connecticut Compromise,” a structure with two houses of government and a directly elected President. By having two chambers, one based on political divisions and one based on population, we in the U.S. created a state where it was very difficult for one party to steamroller the other. It isn’t perfect, the ride hasn’t been smooth, but this structure provides balance and security from a good many types of political abuse (not all, as the Tea Party has shown, alas).
The walls between Israel and Gaza and Israel and the West Bank would come down in stages, to allow people to get used to the new structures, but the government would be constituted immediately through direct elections, and civil law would be immediately extended to all parts of the country.
Extremists would not like any of this, but they would be a diluted minority. The police force and military would have their job cut out for them, of course, but the current stimulants for extremism would be absent. There would be protests, which should be allowed—but violence would be punished. Crimes, no matter what their excuses, would be treated as crimes—everything from murder to cutting down orchards to any sort of hate crime. Religion would no longer be a shield for racism.
Israel would begin to be not just a normal state, but an example for the region—a democracy where freedom exists and everyone has the same rights.
Lastly, and not inconsequentially, what of the “Jewish State”? This has been the raison d’etre of Israel and must be addressed. The problem is that the “Jewish State” has never been defined. It is still being debated after sixty-six years. And for good reason. The question of “who is a Jew?” has been the property of the Rabbinate, who do not represent Judaism as a while. Recently, dissatisfaction with the Rabbinate and its discrimination against non-Ashkenzi Orthodox Jews has led to calls for its abolition. Which still leaves the question unanswered. All that one can say is that Israel is a Jewish state because the majority of its inhabitants are Jews. Descriptive, not normative. Some want to guarantee a Jewish majority in Israel forever. But legislating ethic majorities is functionally impossible, as well as morally repugnant. Where does one draw the line? Fifty-one percent? More? And how do you tell the mother of a newborn infant that she must leave the country because her child exceeds permission limits for the minority population?
And what is a Jew anyway—Orthodox Jews only? This disenfranchises a great many sincerely practicing Jews. And this is why “Jewish State” has never been defined. It can’t really be done. And creating a “Jewish State” isn’t the issue anyway. The issue is to create country where Jews, and all other people—of all religions—are safe from discrimination and abuse. And that would be a more “Jewish” state than Israel is now, perhaps, because it would be more consistent with Jewish moral teachings. The mythology of God giving this land to one tribe of “chosen people” is a myth and should be treated as such. Our moral inheritance is far more important.
The new state would provide freedom and certainly as much protection for Jews as Israel does today, probably more. And for everyone else as well. And isn’t that the point?

What is the most important, the most resonant, the most American music in our lives? I have had many musical influences. But I am the sort of person who doesn't hear lyrics well. I respond to the rhythm, the--what can I call it?--the flow, the soul. The words seep in later. This list is the the artists who touch my soul the most. I will be adding to it, and I invite comment. (This is only American music, so the Stones, the Beatles, and all the Brits (sorry, Eric Clapton) are, necessarily, excluded, among others--Edith Piaf, etc. They belong to another list.)

Tier 1: The Grateful Dead
Tier 2: Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Patsy Cline, Willy Nelson, Robert Johnson
Tier 3: Phil Oakes, Pete Seeger (and the Weavers), Hank Williams, Cole Porter (yes, Cole Porter)
Tier 4: Johnny Cash, Bruce Springsteen, Muddy Waters, Flatt and Scruggs (together), Cisco Houston
Tier 5: ???

Ok, it's up to you. Let's create the list--as deep as you want (no more than 5 per tier, however). I will be adding to it and revising as I see fit. Give me your input!

There was an article in today's weekend edition of The Financial Times on Muslim-/Arab-Americans, most particularly young people, and how they are being treated so badly by other Americans--name calling, discrimination, etc, etc. because of 9/11 and its aftermath. They are being discriminated against--taunted, subjected to police searches, shunned--even if they and their parents were born here. It reminded me of having a German name in the 1950s and being called a Nazi. Not often, but I have never forgotten it. So soon after World War II, there was a lot of unspoken animosity to anyone with a German name, no matter who they were. It was enough to leave a scar that has never really healed for me (Just for the record: my father's family came to America in the 1840s; my mother's came in 1630). I don't consider myself to be oversensitive, but I remember those slights. They still hurt. They were from kids, my classmates, and of course were the result of ignorance and thoughtlessness rather than true bigotry (as far as i know). But that doesn't matter. The damage was done. Perhaps that is why I have always felt like an outsider, even though my pedigree is basically lily-white. Interestingly, my parents gave me a wonderful gift without knowing it: they never referred to people by their race or ethnicity. Never. So people to me were always people-individuals, themselves--not Jews, Italians, Irish, Blacks, or whatever. I once thought the two girls in my first grade class had to be related because they had the same first name, Evelyn. One was Italian; the other was Black. Silly me. But color to me was no more of a difference than a big nose or different eye color. I never thought of the Evelyns as different from each other or from me in any way that formed a barrier. The Trayvon Martin verdict (unbelievable on many fronts--as a lawyer, I am flabbergasted, though not surprised) merely confirms something I have felt for a long time: Americans are afraid--of each other. We are obsessed with security, hoard guns, suspect anyone with a foreign name, want to close all our borders. And we look around our communities for anyone who is different in any way (especially if they are black or have dark skin) and single them out for suspicion. Why? Because we are afraid. FDR once said "The only thing to fear is fear itself." His context was different, but the substance is the same: if we succumb to fear, we are lost. And if we cannot conquer our fear of each other--of our neighbors, of our fellow citizens, of our fellow human beings--maybe we are lost indeed.

The past couple of weeks I have felt strange.Not sure what it was. It was as if my mind was muffled. I had been writing (or trying to write) 1,000 words a day on a new novel and had reached 7,500 or so when the creative energy just petered out. I wasn't sick or anything like that; I was active in the garden swinging saws and shovels and pruning shears. And it wasn't writer's block; I had plenty of ideas (I always do, really). No, it was numbness, as if my mind or body or both was asking me, "What's the point?" Unemployed, likely unemployable in the eyes of those I send my CV to (too old, job history too erratic), unpublished, maybe unpublishable (agents don't respond any more to my queries).

And then I get a book contract out of the blue. How it happened was accidental, at least initially. I got a contact suggestion on linkedin.com for a guy with Greystone Publishing. I had worked (indirectly) for Greystone, a Vancouver outfit, earlier this year on a translation project (I done the work for a friend who had the contract) and felt I should get my name in to them for more editing projects. Start the ball rolling, if you will. The next day the guy sends me a message saying he'd like to read the manuscript of my novel, Wall of Dust, which I described on my linkedin profile. I sent it to him, dampering my expectations as much as possible, though I allowed my self to be very pleased and flattered. But I do go to Greystone's website to look him up on Greystone's website. His name's not there. I search his name and find him readily enough. The confusion is solved: the Vancouver company is Greystone Books; his company is Greystone Publishing. No problem, since the Vancouver company is more interested in Canadiana non-fiction anyway--not likely to be interested in a novel about Palestine. Two says later I get another message saying he wants to publish the book. He sends me a contract, there's a little back and forth, and by the end of the week I have signed. But I'm still numb. No excitement exhilaration, acceptance, happiness on a rather subdued level, and no spark to start writing, though I want to. I began to worry about the task I had just committed to: going over my manuscript again and again, fixing its defects, making it publishable. Again, I wanted to get going, but I couldn't drum up the excitement, the intensity I knew I would need. I began to worry I wouldn't be able to do what I knew needed to be done, not get the book out that I knew I had in me.

This lasted over the weekend until today. Not sure what it was. For a few hours I started thing: Lyme disease, thanks to a New Yorker article (deer ticks are everywhere here), but I've calmed down. Did I hit bottom and not know it? Was I digging myself a pit into a quagmire of ennui until the contract dredged me up? Would I ever have come out of it otherwise? I don't know.

The other day I was thinking about the role of evolution in the development of morality for a book I am trying to write (another topic, another time). In going over all the processes of mutation, adaption and competition, I was struck (not for the first time, but in a new way) by what how hopelessly naive the proponents of Intelligent Design are. For if there is one thing that could be touted as the component of an intelligent design, it is evolution.

The one constant in the universe it is change. No moment is like the last or the next. A creature born into this universe, like it or not, has to deal with this. And this is the beauty of evolution. At root, each creature must compete to survive because every environment's resources are finite. Competition exists without evolution, but evolution does not exist without competition. Take sharks. They haven't evolved significantly for millions of years because they have found an ecological niche that hasn't changes so hasn't required adaptation to change. And they are vulnerable because of it. Their terrestrial carnivore cousins--like the T-rex and the tiger--haven't been so lucky. One is gone, the other threatened. Sharks in a way, prove the rule, and global warming and human predation may just be the end of them. So if you are creating a world and populating it with creatures, especially creatures you are creating in your own image, you're going to prepare them for change. You are going to give them the potential to evolve, to survive. The added advantage to this is that if they change by themselves you, as deity on high, won't have to always be jumping in the save their uncompetitive little asses. This "in his own image" thing though, has to be discarded as hyper-arrogant. God is a little too big and complicated for a mortal creature to look like Him. Best to think of that as a figurative line, that we, possessing awareness of God, will strive to be perfect like Him. Some sort of motivational thing. I think a deity might just think of that, too, if for no other reason that to keep us humble and on good moral behavior. (Though it really hasn't worked that well, has it?) Evolution, then would be a natural part of the process of becoming more like God. And that's what He wants, right?

Advocates of Intelligent Design reveal themselves in their rejection of change (even as they drive their cars and text on their cell phones--ideally not at the same time). They deny change. I get the impression they think they are already pretty close to perfect. Should we perhaps gently break the sad news to them that, well, the universe they say their God created operates just a tad differently?

The deposing of Egyptian President Morsi is rightly being greeted with mixed feelings. One the one hand, he was insinuating his Islamic Brotherhood cohorts into government positions and creating policies that further islamicized the country while doing blessed little to deal with the country's economic difficulties. And his ouster is very, very widely supported among the population, though his proponents are now flexing their street muscle. On the other hand, he was deposed by the strong hand of the army, not impeached through the processes of law. What Egypt lacks, and (like virtually all of its neighbors) needs, is a set of institutions that allow these sort of issues to be decided by process, not by ad hoc protests, subterfuge or the intervention of military power.

Egypt may yet pull through, but this highlights another issue, also very pertinent to the region's politics, and that is that the institutions that must be created have to be secular. Orthodoxy, be it Islamic, Jewish, or right-wing Republican, is the enemy of process because it permits no compromise, and compromise is the mortar that holds the edifice of a society together. Unilateral, unquestioned exercise of power by one person or group, though often efficient (Mussolini and the trains thing, you know) by definitely create a politics of exclusion and alienation and guess what, this leads to violence nearly always because the disaffected have no legitimate channel to voice grievance and feel they are being heard. They hit the streets, and inevitably, the military has to clamp down and the cycle continues. Brute force controls. We have seen this ourselves in the U.S., but our institutions have held because people know their votes count (pace the Roberts Court's recent decisions, that is).

Egypt is not so lucky. And remember this is, at root, about the role of religion in an Islamic society. And Egypt is not alone, Syria's civil war is mired by the same problem: the tribalism of religion. By this I mean the tendency to turn religious differences into an us-versus-them, all-or-nothing conflict, instead of searching for a middle ground. The Tea Party does exactly the same thing in the U.S. By insisting on orthodoxy, what should be a debate becomes a war. The U.S. will muddle through (as the Brits say) because the Tea Party is its own worst enemy, and again, because we already have solid institutions--secular institutions that have proven their worth time and time again, despite Newt Gingrich, his acolytes and political descendants.

The challenge in Egypt, in other Islamic countries, and, yes, in Israel is to get the populace to understand that a secular society is not anti-religion, it is the only means to protect religion from . . . religion. Ironic,isn't it. But if the Sunnis want to be protected from the Shias, if the Shias want to be protected from the Sunnis, if teh Jews want to be protected from both of them--and vice versa, they secular institutions respecting freedom of religion must be put in place. Israel actually has a court system that tries to do its job, but the constitutional structure in Israel (proportional representation--only Italy has anything similar, QED) plus the institutionalization of Orthodox Judaism into governmental functioning (they feel quite free to discriminate against other Jews, and do) have dealt Israel a set of similar issue that can only be solved by more determinedly secular institutions there as well.

What would this look like? Very simple. It would look like the U.S. Bill of Rights (which we got from the Brits, don't forget), starting with the First Amendment's guarantee of religious freedom through the Establishment and Free Exercise clauses. To whit: "Congress shall make no law respecting a establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." The wording would have to be modernized, but you get the point: no official national religion and no interfering with anyone's religious practices.

They've served pretty well for us. It isn't easy, but it does work.

Americans like to win. And they don't like to lose. Ostensibly, this is the objective of competition: to win. To beat the other guy to the prize. And survive by being on top. And because of this pathological desire to win at all costs, American shave created a society that risks descending into the tiers of the second rate.
Part of it is confusion over what winning is. Is winning achieving the best solution to the problem? Or is is merely beating the other guy (by any means) in the immediate term? Americans have opted for the latter. Win now. Damn the rest. As a result, our health care sucks, our infrastructure sucks, our business ethics are non-existent, and we are, as society, completely paranoid. We live in fear about everything. The government is out to get us, our neighbor is packing heat. Our values are under assault.
If we still had any values. That is now dubious.
There is a lot to say in this regard, so I will confine myself right now to stating the obvious about our government, specifically (but not exclusively) the Republican Party. The republicans do not care about solving problems. their record is abysmally clear. When in office, they enlarge deficits and subsidize their friends--those who pay up, anyway--particularly in the finance and defense industries.
The last election was an embarrassment. The Republicans thought they could simply buy it. Spend money and they will come. the despised liberals, the Democrats, did what the GOP was too arrogant to do: they went to the people. Guess who won? Oh, we already know.
The Republicans were obsessed with the win, not the substance of dealing with issues and facts. So they lost. But let's not portray this as a Republican issue. it is an American issue. As much as we are obsessed with winning, our deepest fear is losing.
Remember Vietnam? Some of us do--those of us who had draft cards--and we haven't trusted government since. The reason is that we got stuck in Vietnam for no other reason than that our presidents--Johnson and Nixon--couldn't bear the stigma of losing. They both did other good things, it is true, but in this one instance they were cowards. Losing was viewed as unacceptable. Even if in the beginning, it wasn't even an issue except in the minds of drooling domino theorists (a theory that has since been discredited, by the way. No dominoes. No genuine Commie threat. And no strategic interest for the U.S. Phantoms on every level.)
But Our leaders decided they couldn't deal with "losing" and killed 60,000 Americans (and countless Vietnamese) before reality was rubbed in their faces.
All because Americans are not problem solvers, they worship victory.
I hate to tell you folks, life is not a game.

There have been too many killings with guns in the United States recently, especially with what are basically military-issue assault rifles. How do we deal with this? Many Americans, including the President, want to enact strict limitations on who can own firearms—any firearms. Many others, including the National Rifle Association, insist that there is an absolute Constitutional right to bear arms and that the real focus should be in identifying mentally ill people, and restricting their access to guns.

The Second Amendment is viewed either as absolute or anachronistic. It is neither. But it was carefully drafted—if one credits the Founders with any intelligence whatsoever—and this care seems to have been ignored by everyone, especially, in my view, the NRA.

The Second Amendment is the only one of the ten clauses of the Bill of Rights t be qualified an introductory clause: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, . . . .” “Well regulated.” The Founders were not throwing rights out for free. They were saying that rights have responsibilities. The Second Amendment is not exempt. The Founders knew that defense needed to be regulated, and firearms as a part of that, needed to be regulated, too.

The NRA has a lot of support among average Americans who have no problem with gun ownership and who are themselves, conscientious people who know how to deal with guns responsibly. And this is true: the vast majority of gun owners, rhetoric aside, are responsible people. They know how to handle guns safely and are comfortable with guns. And let’s not generalize: these people live everywhere. We are not talking about country versus city, North versus South, redneck versus liberal, or rich versus poor. Normal Americans have guns. Deal with it. It’s part of our national character, whether we like it or not.

The NRA, however, has shown no leadership in this matter. Their representatives are reactive, paranoid, and—their worst sin, in my opinion—impractical. And they seem to have no real interest in addressing a real problem: the murders of innocent Americans through the extreme misuse of firearms by other Americans.

The NRA doesn’t want to deal with those two words in the Second Amendment: “well” and “regulated.” But they can’t ignore them, not if they want to retain any integrity at all.

So let me propose a solution. First, we need to license firearms, all of them. We license cars, we license dogs. Hell, we license real estate agents. We also require hunters to have licenses. So, we can license firearms. No honest American will object. Requiring a license is not a restriction on ownership; it is an assessment of ability and maturity. Just like a driver’s license, just like a hunter’s license.

But we have to look at the types of firearms involved. Hunters use long guns: rifle, shotguns. Handguns are different. Assault rifles are different. So those need to be regulated differently.

The NRA should have no problem with mandatory background checks for all firearms. This is the best way, maybe the only way, to screen out the mentally ill, which the NRA itself says should be the focus of the debate.

Hunters get their rifles and shotguns with their license. No problem. Handguns? Require a course in gun safety. Just like a driver’s license. But what about assault weapons? Here the Second Amendment pertains the most, because assault weapons are exclusively military weapons.

The solution is simple: in addition to a regular long gun permit, if you want to own an assault weapon, you have to be a member of a recognized militia organization. Recognized, that is, by the federal government. In short, you have to be a member of the National Guard or something similar. If you have not made a commitment to the U.S. military in this fashion—a commitment to the common defense as stipulated by the Second Amendment—you do not deserve to own a military weapon. Period.

The NRA won’t like this because they don’t care about the Constitution, not really. They care about collecting dues from their members and paying themselves nice salaries. And they care about promoting ignorance and irresponsibility so that they keep collecting those dues.

But honest Americans are responsible and know that ownership of firearms carries with it responsibility. And honest Americans understand that we can be good citizens and own guns. We just have to do it right.