Marketing To America'S Youth: Evidence From: Fill & Download for Free

ANSWERED 29 JULY 2019 - UPDATED 16 AUGUST 2019—This is a two part question. I’ll answer the second part first:PART TWO:To begin, this should not be a question about Kamala Harris as President. Rather, it should be about whoever holds the office as President. And whoever that person is, he or she does not have the power to ban firearms by Executive Order!Why not?Because to ban firearms means the U.S. Constitution has to be amended.The President cannot amend the U.S. Constitution by Executive Order.There are two procedures by which to Amend the U.S. Constitution.Either by the Congress with a two-thirds majority vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.Or by a constitutional convention called for by two-thirds of the State legislatures.If either of these procedures occurs, then a 3/4 majority vote by the states must occur in order to ratify an amendment.These are lengthy and deliberative processes. The Founders intended that the process to change the Constitution be lengthy and deliberative so we would be sure that the Constitutional change we were making is what we really wanted.PART ONE:Do I think Kamala Harris would be right to do so? To reiterate, this question is not about Kamala Harris. Rather, it’s about whoever holds the office. Therefore, regardless of who is President, my answer to the first part of this question is No!Please bear with me while I explain—It’s clear to a majority of Americans that the nation must do something about violence, especially gun violence, particularly mass shootings. This is not simply a matter of urgency. Rather, it’s become critical to the health of the nation.It’s also clear that kids who live in homes where firearms are present may be vulnerable to accidental shootings because kids are curious. That is their nature, and their curiosity is to be celebrated, not criticized. Still, their curiosity sometimes gets them into trouble.Even so—THE NATION SHOULD NOT DO ANYTHING THAT WILL AGGREVATE THE EXISTING BLACK MARKET IN THE TRAFFICKING OF FIREARMS OR AMMUNITION.It’s true that we already have a Black Market in the Trafficking of Firearms and Ammunition, but let’s not make it worse. This is not a cop-out, as some will say, i.e., running away from the issue, or as my Grand Dad would say, slipping out the back door while everyone is looking at who’s coming in the front door for, as I wrote below in my reply to a comment about my Quora answer to the question, it’s a fantasy to think that we can get rid of the guns in America.The U.S. has an unknown number of guns. Some estimates run as high as triple the population, putting the number close to a billion firearms.What made this happen is that America is a frontier culture. People underestimate how important this is to America. It’s importance is that, in America, guns are celebrated, nay, guns are part of the soul of this country. The gun is as American as our mother’s apple pie. Indeed, there is no other place in the world where guns are celebrated like they are in the U.S. Our closest neighbors, Canada, and Mexico, grew up with the gun, yet neither of those country’s has a “gun culture.” Indeed, neither of those countries celebrates, or embraces, the gun. Neither do our English speaking allies (the UK, Ireland, Australia, South Africa, and especially New Zealand).In the U.S., kids grow up with guns. And when kids are not playing with guns, they’re watching their heroes use guns—on T.V., at the movie theater, in stage plays, at County Fairs, its everywhere. And what’s particularly notable is not that their heroes always win, but that they win, in large measure, because of their gun.Hollywood has done it’s part in celebrating the “gun culture.” I remember Alan Ladd telling Marian in the movie ‘Shane,” “A gun is a tool, Marian, like any other tool. A gun is no better, or worse, than the man who’s using it.”Still, Hollywood did not create the “gun culture.” They merely exploited it. The same is true of the NRA. In this country kids are taught that guns didn’t just defend the Declaration of Independence, but rather, without guns, there wouldn’t be a Declaration of Independence. It’s almost as if guns wrote the document.Added to this is the Second Amendment to the Constitution. I quote: “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”This Amendment has been interpreted as giving all Americans the right to own a gun. To change this, as I said above, requires an Amendment.We can argue about whether the intent of the “Framers” was for people to have their own guns at home so that they could quickly and easily join into a fighting unit when called (a Militia), or whether the “Framers” intent was for the guns to be in a safe storage place where the people, when called, could easily get their guns (a well regulated Militia), but there is no question that in the 2nd Amendment, the Framers said that because guns were vital to the security of the nation, that each of us has a right to own one.So, I believe that it’s fantasy to think that we can take away guns, or ban them outright. But it’s not fantasy to think that we can regulate their ownership, and that we can teach and train our kids how to use them.Thus, I believe that Education and Training, combined with sensible and non-threatening regulation, are the key to ending the violence in America.I’s also my belief that doing any of the actions listed below will aggravate the already existing Black Market in the trafficking of firearms and ammunition!MAKING IT CUMBERSOME TO OWN FIREARMS!TAKING FIREARMS AWAY FROM PEOPLE!ATTEMPTING TO TAKE FIREARMS AWAY FROM PEOPLE!TAKING AWAY PEOPLE’S ABILITY TO BUY AMMUNITION!MAKING IT CUMBERSOME TO OWN AND/OR BUY AMMUNITION!ATTEMPTING TO TAKE AWAY, OR ATTEMPTING TO MAKE IT CUMBERSOME TO BUY OR OWN AMMUNITION!MOST IMPORTANTLY—TO REITERATE, DOING ANY OF THE ABOVE WILL INSTANTLY AGGRAVATE THE EXISTING BLACK MARKET IN THE TRAFFICKING OF FIREARMS, AND AMMUNITION!FINALLY, BUT PERHAPS WORSE THAN THE ABOVE—DO NOT CREATE A NATION WHERE ONLY THE CRIMINALS, THE WEALTHY, THE POLICE , AND THE MILITARY HAVE FIREARMS, AND THE AMMUNITION FOR THEM!CONCLUSION:Instead of doing something that will aggravate the existing Black Market in the trafficking of firearms and ammunition, let’s do what Switzerland does, i.e., educate our youth about firearms at an early age. Let’s have Firearms Education in schools, just as we have Driver Ed, and Sex Education, and may I add, Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic. Switzerland teaches firearms education as early as 5 years old.On this point, I learned to shoot from my Marine Corps father when I was 5 years old (Sgt/Maj-1933–1966). At the time, we lived in Camp Pendleton, and there were many places to shoot. Not only was my father a Marine veteran of WW2 and Korea, he grew up hunting as a young boy in Colorado.When I was 17, I entered Marine Corps Boot Camp. Later, when I was in college, I worked part time at a local gun shop in San Diego. After college, I went to Vietnam. When I returned, I went immediately to graduate school for my PhD. Today, I own several guns, and have access to many more.That said, I haven’t fired a firearm since my graduate school years after Vietnam. My father stopped hunting after his wars because he couldn’t shoot anything that wasn’t shooting at him, or threatening to shoot at him.I feel the same way as my father.I’m not a member of the NRA, and I have no commercial involvement with firearms, but, speaking as a trained Social Scientist, the data show that existence and cause are unrelated, i.e., the existence of guns in the population is not the cause of accidental gun deaths, and gun violence, particularly, mass shootings.Moreover, both the hard data and the anecdotal evidence show that while doing away with guns, and/or ammunition, may have an effect on gun violence and mass shootings, but it will not stop humans from killing one another.As I wrote above, one lesson may be Switzerland. The population and cultural differences may tarnish the lesson for some, but hold your skepticism for a moment and consider this:Globally, only the U.S. has more guns in the general population in both per capita number as well as aggregate number than Switzerland. Yet, Switzerland has very few accidental gun deaths. In the U.S., accidental gun deaths number in the thousands. As for gun violence and mass shootings, the U.S. leads the world, where Switzerland is among the lowest in the world ranking with nations that have zero guns in the general population.I believe the key to solving America’s Violence, especially gun violence, is education. My clock says that the break is over and that it’s time for classes to begin!Semper Fi,JE-PhD—Political Science (Political Theory, Economics, History, Mathematics)“Old Corps, New Corps, Same Corps”

We already know the answer to this.You could argue that it would look like the America most conservatives want to get back to. That time back in the ’50s before the dirty hippies screwed everything up and family values reigned supreme.Dad went to work at a good honest 9–5 job, Mom stayed home with the 3 kids and kept the baby out of Alice’s way while she vacuumed.What’s that you say? They could afford to do that back then and still manage to retire at a reasonable age?Why are things so different now that the average middle-class family can’t get near affording that without both parents working at least one job? What was so different then?20 years of Democratic Control followed by 8 years under the single most fiscally liberal Republican of the 20th century, followed by 8 more years of Democratic control?I see. Well, what’s happened since then?20 years of Republican control with a 4-year break, during which time the power of Labor Unions were eroded, workers' rights were sacrificed at the corporate altar. Pensions went away, wages stagnated while consumer costs skyrocketed, and the wealth gap between the lower and middle class and the crème de la crème grew to astronomical proportions.Meanwhile, the annual increases in national debt grew from $6 billion to $347 BillionIs the US Budget Deficit Really That Bad?Bill Clinton took office and work began on getting things back on track. By the year chads were hanging in Florida, the national debt increase was down to $18 Billion, within $1B of where it was back in 1970.Naturally, we just couldn’t have “Tax and Spend” liberals out there managing debt and turning in budget surpluses with impunity, so what did we do? We let the tyranny of the minority put a good “fiscally responsible” Republican in office for the next 8 years.And the National Debt increases skyrocketed from something the US could have paid off with Uncle Sam’s pocket change to $1.6 Trillion with a T. Yeah. In 8 years, we multiplied the annual national debt increases by x90. No. That wasn’t the “Tax and Spend Liberals.”(Yes, I included 2009, because that number has the problems caused by the previous administration in it.)So we got a good solid centrist In office for the next 8 years, but of course, he had a “D” next to his weird foreign-sounding name, so he must have been a socialist. And naturally, the national debt went wild, Right? Right? Hello? It did, right?Yeah. Obama saw increases lower than 1990 in 2015, and in his last fiscal year 35% of where it was after the Auto Industry Bailout. (2017 is the last year of his budget.)Of course he left the Economy in tatters, right? I mean Unemployment was terrible until just last week right?What? That can’t be…that would mean that of the 6.3% unemployment has gone down since the height of the housing crisis, Obama was responsible for 5.8%, and Trump has been in office for a .5% decrease, and that we are just seeing a 10-year trend, not some Trump miracle???!!! WHAT???? NO!But the markets suffered….I mean surely the way the markets have behaved during Trump's first 3 years in office is unprecedented, right? I mean It's YUGE!!!! The Dow is up 43.7% After Trump’s first 3 years!What? It was up 50.6% at this point in Obama’s Presidency? Yup.Dow Jones - DJIA - 100 Year Historical ChartBut we had no Growth!!!!Right. None at all. Just terrible. </sarcasm> An Annual Review of the U.S. Economy Since 1929But…Surely the debt increases have gone down, right???Not so much.Look, I’ve made this point a few different ways. People ask me what made me move from being a staunch Republican in my youth to my much more liberal attitudes now. The answer is in the evidence.As much as Republicans like to brand themselves as “Fiscally Responsible” the evidence shows that Democrats are significantly more fiscally responsible, that the economy does better under Democrats, that Keynesian economic theory works much better for the vast majority of Americans while Chicago School economic theory only benefits large corporations & the financial elite, and no, the promised investments that are supposed to benefit the little guy never happen, no, the economic growth that is supposed to cover the reduced taxes never materializes, and yes, deregulation has the effect it has to. It crashes the markets.What would happen with 20 years of Democratic control? We already know. And it was GREAT. It can be again.Yeah. You heard me.

Some issues that are of import to me that need more coverage:Agriculture - The status of the GM field trials that were approved by Maharashtra and 3 other Indian states (Maharashtra clears trials for GM food). It seems that the trials in Maharashtra have been put on hold (Maharashtra Govt puts on hold confined field trials of GM crops). However, a couple of RTI queries and subsequent appeals to the authorities were given the reply that the Dr. Anil Kakodkar Committee that cleared these field trials has exempted all information related to GM crops under the RTI Act, without quoting which exemption clauses of the RTI Act they fall under. It is also unclear why this committee did not contain representatives of farmers or consumers, or environment experts on its panel. The big picture questions such as nutritional value of GM crops, impact on indigenous varieties, biocontamination, immunity to farmers against biopiracy and patent infringement lawsuits, conflicts of interest between the seed manufacturers and pesticide/herbicide manufacturers, increased pesticide and herbicide use causing soil and water table contamination, etc. are not even in the picture right now.Medicine - Medical diagnostic tests, home monitoring and lifestyle products being used in India are directly using models developed on Caucasian populations. Certain new commercial clinics are using medical technologies in a way that is not cleared for use in other countries, or technologies that were never approved anyway. The good news is that India's doctors are on the whole a pretty smart bunch and haven't given way to the "evidence based medicine" paradigm completely - it would be a total no-no in the Indian scenario as it stands. Medical professionals currently don't have the evidence they really need to take these calls - evidence gathered on their target populations. They also may not have the training and experience to be able to evaluate the merits of evidence placed before them, which often focuses on market research rather than actual full-fledged clinical research. The way foreign pharma and device companies go about gathering evidence from Indian populations is also something that will need more oversight and scrutiny in the coming decades. Whether consent in clinical trials is actually informed consent, depends too much on individual physicians and PIs.Children - India is failing its children. 1 lakh children go missing every year. Government-run homes housing rescued kids are in shambles. Many of these kids are not supposed to be there in the first place, and several stay here for far longer than they're supposed to. There is no government oversight on what happens to the inmates once they leave - we lack the bandwidth to do this. Their cases lie tied up in red tape for way too long as their childhood peters away. This is all I'll say about this emotive issue on a public platform.Urban pollution - Our big cities are struggling with their waste. The fact that Mumbai produces 10,000 metric tonnes of just collected trash daily, and is still not the most polluted city is shocking. Landfills are refusing to accept trash and cities are conducting deals with peri-urban areas to use their land for dumping. Bangalore's lakes are foaming at the mouth (literally) and its land undergoes spontaneous combustion. The way medical and biohazardous waste is disposed of is criminal.Innovation - Following up with innovators who win awards and/or backing, finding out what they ended up doing with their innovations and why. What were the challenges they faced and did society fail them. These are all of importance for a generation that values some misguided notions of entrepreneurship, as well as an administration that is trying hard to be pro-entrepreneurship.Urban malnutrition - The urban poor are going to face extreme food insecurity due to changing aspirations in food preferences. The urban rich are becoming more and more prone to lifestyle diseases.Food labelling - The Nestle controversy quickly became all about the favourite junk food of the Indian youth, when it should have been about food labelling. The food processing industry and the regulatory bodies need to figure out better standards for food labelling. Even America doesn't allow Kraft to call its product "cheese". We're doing worse than America at food labelling.RTI/PIL Watch - Regular monitoring of RTIs and PILs, as well as the responses thereof would be in public interest and would spark more citizen participation.Governmental inefficiency - Posting a news reporter at every government agency can produce gold for any intrepid news-editor on a daily basis. Mind numbing stories of inefficient stupidity abound. Officials have eye-watering prevarication skills. How this affects important work needs to be highlighted. Languid statements expressing official helplessness of some kind always have massive inefficiency behind them.The legislative process - Some bills become superstars, while others are completely ignored. It would be good to get updates on all bills. Local newspapers could easily devote daily or weekly features, following up the progress of their MPs/MLAs/corporators. It seems like only the government-sponsored news outlets do this in some measure.Some of these stories are mentioned once in a while. Sunday specials in newspapers deign to give us a two-page spread on "issues" sometimes. These stories just garner an eyeball-grabbing headline with limited follow up.Some newspapers like the Mumbai Mirror build up credentials for very good local coverage, but then squander it off by taking sides on issues that lack public significance (the colour of the street lights on Marine Drive does not warrant months of front page headlines). They cater to their readers and will never point out things that the public gets wrong - their slant is always that the public is always righteous and above question.Why do I think these aren't in the news?Because media has a quick fix solution to its 24/7 demand for news - Twitter and other miscellaneous social media.The media has easy avenues and low standards these days, passing off some individual's off-the-cuff (or not) 140-character-long Twitter remarks as news. Consumers assume this is big news and somehow important, and it's easy enough to build a story around it.This statement-baazi (statement-mongering) needs to stop. Only then will the media start looking for relevant news bytes that can be found everywhere, if only someone looked for them.This Twitter-ising of news was recently effectively used by PM Modi to troll the media with a late evening tweet on 3rd Aug 2015 announcing a landmark event at 7 RCR at 6:30 pm (https://twitter.com/narendramodi/status/628184928711106560). That day had seen the nadir of parliamentary procedure with Congress party members descending into the House wearing black armbands, holding placards and shouting slogans, demanding a statement from senior Parliamentarian Sushma Swaraj, and then refusing to let her speak. The PM was expected to react to this, and I saw the TV news channels licking their chops in anticipation when the PM issued this tweet, expecting him to give in to the opposition's demands, back down on the Land Bill, fire Swaraj, and a host of other speculation. Instead, the PM got all of India staring at their TV sets to watch the signing of a peace deal that would have otherwise been ignored by people. Embarrassed news hosts quickly switched to a commercial break, and nothing was mentioned about how these speculative prophets now had egg on their faces. This shows the value our media places on this statement-baazi in its quest for staying current with attention grabbing news.I think media has been moving away from long-form investigative journalism, barring a few examples. Opinion pieces are a dime a dozen, with everyone from a former FM to your neighbourhood milkman eligible to write opinion "pieces" on "news outlets" with innocuous names that fit the following mould:"The <insert imposing descriptive adjective here> Indian".There is a misplaced earnestness, a sense of righteousness sans critical thinking, driven by a slacktivist narrative that is lapped up by vapid masses. It's totally driven by sites such as Quora, which are actually social media masquerading as "serious discussion outlets", where the next generation of "serious political commentators" are fed and fostered.Some of us recognise this, and choose to play down and ridicule our own "serious" writing, as a measure of avoiding self-aggrandizement. Yet Quorans working for various news discussion fora randomly solicit writers to contribute to their platforms.The interesting thing is that people are so receptive to news now. The smallest incident captures people's attention, and is consumed, shared and talked about with earnestness. The time is ripe for good journalism to thrive, new information that challenges widely held beliefs to be aired out and appreciated, in this "Brave New World" in the Age of Information.With technological advancements, changes in society that now sees journalism as a respectable profession, and the avid receptive audience, the news media really has no excuse for not finding ways of getting new stories across in a manner that is easily consumable by the most naive consumers.Thanks for the A2A.