The Breakfast Table

Smackdown Camp, Radical Reform, and a Community Armory

An Urgent Appeal to Arthur and Joe,

Look, Arthur, I know you are preoccupied with next summer’s Stocks vs. Mendelsohn smackdown camp, but in the meantime, we must return to “The Fray” on Friday, stripped of the “S” from the temp agency. That’s OK, except that we will probably face an unholy Zeitguy Axis, formed while we slept. Are we going to remain three iconoclastic individual Fraygrants or band together as the “Three Amigos” and face this potential menace together?

What really might be trouble, though, is the insurrection among federal employees that you are fomenting, Joe. Workers without bureaucrats? Impossible.

Arthur, I don’t really want to take away Social Security from rich people–I was just trying to see if there are areas off-limits to class warfare arguments. Tax cuts, yes; direct checks, no. Your legal analysis seems sound to this layman, and I would agree that it is defensible to consider means-testing for future benefits. I also think it is defensible to consider how private accounts might work, an idea that seems to have gone down with the Nasdaq.

Doing something radical–like reforming Social Security or truly reforming our tax code–seems very unlikely given today’s evenly divided government. Both political parties seem locked in a titanic struggle to just to neutralize each other’s ideas. What will it take for big legislative/policy changes to occur in this country? A national crisis? How does one party gain a working majority so it can push through a coherent agenda? Do we need a president who has won more than 50 percent of the vote? A candidate willing to be a one-term president in order to put through tough choices? A female president who might have an easier time convincing us to eat our spinach?

Or, is gridlock the ideal form of government? Can we incrementally change our way to solving all problems?

Congressman Frank Wolf, R-Va., has apparently proposed a tax credit for installing home workstations that allow telecommuting. Sounds great–work at home, more family time, less traffic, and Uncle Sam kicks in cash. Maybe this is a great piece of legislation. But if a company hasn’t allowed a worker to telecommute by now, I don’t think it ever will. It’s probably just another possible amendment to the tax preparers’ employment act.

Like Joe, I despair of discussing the Second Amendment and gun control. I have never owned a firearm of any kind, and the only weapons I ever touched or fired were as an infantryman in the old Army, not the new “Army of One.” Nonetheless, I strenuously defend the right of others to own guns, but I am willing to discuss various controls, which, to the die-hard NRA types, makes me James Brady. I would like to offer one modest possible solution that will undoubtedly draw scorn: armories. Don’t store your guns or, more important, your ammo, at home, except for basic protection. Store them in a community armory where they are locked away and guarded. Isn’t that the concept of the “militia” that’s in the Constitution? Gun owners can gather at the armory and talk guns, gun safety, and the 12-point buck that got away. This idea goes against my belief in limited government, but if I were a gun owner, I’d prefer it to the “taking away” alternative you say is constitutional.

Way too long, I know.

Will

P.S.: Joe, I couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn as an Army marksman, but I was awesome with a flame-thrower.