The View from Right Field

Sexual Harassment: Rewrite the Rules But Focus on Those Who Deserve Condemnation the Most

Megan McArdle writes an excellent column on the allegations of sexual harassment that are coming out.  She asks:

“As the accusations of sexual harassment snowball, how ready are we for the consequences of rewriting the sexual rulebook so drastically, all at once?”

And she responds to her own question:

“The question when confronted with reports of decades-old misdeeds is not ‘Would this guy be a creep if he did this today?’  Better to ask: ‘Was he better or worse than his environment?’  And also: ‘Is there reason to believe he might have changed since then?’”

Gun Control: Get Whatever You Can

I have said this before, but it probably needs to be said again: Strict gun control laws¹ are not going to stop mass shootings in the United States – for at least two reasons.  First, regardless of how obvious such laws may seem to some people, the Constitution prohibits them (at least until either a constitutional amendment is adopted [the estimated effective date of that being f-o-r-e-v-e-r] or the composition of the Supreme Court changes).  Also, lots of people oppose them.

But even if strict gun control laws were passed, that wouldn’t solve the problem of the tens of millions of guns already in the United States – unless you are going to conduct a house-to-house search for illegal guns.  Some people say we should have never allowed all those guns to be here.  But they are here now – and we have to deal with the situation as it is, not as how we wish it were.

Stopping Sexual Harassment – Without Overreacting

In Saturday’s Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan wrote of the good that is coming from what appears to be society’s understanding, at last, of the harm and wrongness of sexual harassment.  But she also warned, “[t]he challenge is to pursue justice while keeping a sense of humanity.” 

She told of her yearly visit to the doctor.  As they talked of how to stay healthy in New York, including keeping back from the curb as trucks cut corners too tight, Ms. Noonan told her doctor: “I take the arms of cellphone zombies and guide them a step back to keep them safe.  I’d done it recently with a young woman.”

Ms. Noonan continued: “[The doctor] got a poignant look.  ‘I can’t do that now,’ he said.  If he put his hand on a strange woman’s arm, it might be misunderstood.”  I understand.

Who Gets to Decides the Chicago Police Department’s “Use of Force” Policy?

Who runs local government?  The voters and their elected officials – or somebody else?  That is the question that came to mind when I saw this article in last Saturday’s Chicago Tribune (here are the first four paragraphs):

“The union that represents rank-and-file Chicago police officers has filed a complaint with the Illinois Labor Relations Board alleging the Police Department violated its collective bargaining agreement by implementing changes to its use-of-force policy without union approval.

In its petition, the Fraternal Order of Police said this marks the latest in a pattern by city officials to make changes to Police Department policies on their own without negotiating them through the collective bargaining process.  The two sides are in the midst of contract negotiations.

Sometimes the Best Defense Against a Guy With a Gun – Is Another Guy With a Gun

Reports on the shooting of Republican congressmen and others at a baseball practice yesterday before the annual Congressional baseball game say that the number of those killed and wounded would have probably been higher if two members of the Capitol Police had not been there as bodyguards for Republican Majority Whip Steve Scalise (here and here).  In other words, what saved a lot of people at the practice from being shot was the presence of trained people with guns.

Obviously, some gun control supporters are not going to like the idea that the best defense against somebody with a gun is somebody else with a gun.  They think we ought to ban, or at least greatly restrict, the sale and possession of guns and that that will solve the problem.  And who knows, it might – if there weren’t tens of millions of guns already out there.

Ogden Nash: Sexual Predator

The politically correct and terminally sensitive have put out a revision of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” According to the concerned, the 1944 song “sounds hopelessly dated … in an age of informed consent and egalitarian relationships.”  One of the writers of the updated version of the song explained, “It was important to us to open a conversation about consent and make sure people's stories get told and the rhetoric gets changed.”

Apparently, when the current generation hears “say, what’s in this drink”, they think date rape drugs.  And the constant pleading in the song removes the necessary element of mutual constant from the sexual relationship.¹ 

13 Killed and 42 Injured. Just Another Weekend in Chicago.

Thirteen people were killed and at least 42 injured in shootings over the Father’s Day weekend in Chicago.  At that rate, in month there would be as many dead, and way more injured, on the streets of Chicago as in the Pulse nightclub in Orlando.  Many people will say that it is because of our gun laws.  I don’t know if that is true or not, but the gun laws are there.  And even if we change them tomorrow, the guns will still be there.  Which means the people in charge need to come up with a solution that works even with the guns there.  Because just complaining about gun laws is giving up.