BIAS

it is sometimes difficult to see our own blindness. there is much acceptance in most of the industrialized world that guns have potential for much harm and should be highly regulated. in canada it is safe to say that much harm has been done by alcohol, not only but particularly among first-nations communities, but there is not much acceptance for the idea of highly regulating this behavior. is there some reason to ignore the possibility that regulating alcohol more highly might improve the lives of many? 

most canadians have never considered the idea that more information and education about the dangers of guns might be all that is needed. they assume regulation is necessary regardless of any information program. but they do not feel the same way about alcohol. i wonder why that is.

in assessing my own bias, i notice that i do not think most activity humans engage in should be regulated by prohibition. making illegal certain substances like alcohol and even all drugs has always seemed to me the wrong way to go. so why do i feel it is right and proper to limit public access to firearms by prohibition?

i don't know. the argument is advanced that alcohol over-consumption mainly injures oneself, whereas guns represent a threat to others. but first, others are greatly impacted and often injured by one's alcohol consumption and, second, most gun deaths are from suicide, a self-inflicted injury. 

there is more overlap between guns and alcohol (or all drugs) than is comfortable to admit.
i wonder why that is.

could it be that alcohol injury usually takes place over a protracted time and presents many opportunities for self-regulation and improvement, whereas gun injury can be sudden and instantaneous and often impossible to redress, that the sudden finality of gun injury makes it much more difficult to address with programs of education to improve awareness?

MAN AND MOSQUITOES

man constructs himself exactly the same way mosquitoes construct themselves but he does not invent himself any more than mosquitoes do.

ELITE POWER

elite power is the single most retarding force resisting the necessary changes in the human endeavor on earth. it is poor in most nations, bad in china, america, russia, most south american countries; it is horrible in places like syria, saudi arabia, egypt, iran and many of the countries of africa. forgive me if i have forgotten notable offenders, but you get the idea: social democracy truly needs to be tried somewhere at least once beyond scandinavia and new zealand before we give it up and look elsewhere. 

and don't talk to me about capitalist democracy, an oxymoron. private accumulation of capital is a system entirely structured around endless growth on a finite planet with a limited carrying capacity. when i was a small child there were less than two billion living humans on earth; now that i am old, there are over seven billion. do you think the small children alive today will see a growth factor in human population of four by the time they are old? do you think we are heading for a planet of twenty-five or thirty billion?

think again. and think again about elitism, including its growth-dependent private capital iteration.