A Radical Reinterpretation of the U.S. Second Amendment
2012
Food Arms Communication Energy Transportation
Distributing power from concentrated centers to the fabric of society
Trading some short-term safety for long-term security
When, in 1791, the Second Amendment was added to the U.S. Constitution, it had a critical purpose, second perhaps only to the First. Of course, we all know that it speaks of the people's "right to bear arms", to what we might at least agree intended a "grass-roots" access to gun ownership. The Supreme court has ruled that this right applies to individuals - some argue that it was intended only for "well-regulated militia". But however you interpret it, it was definitely intended to be an alternative to, or augmentation of, the arms that might be held in the more centralized federal and state armies. Understanding the historical frailties and excesses of large governments in general, the founding fathers were not willing to leave the long-term security of the people solely in the hands centralized authorities, for such authorities could fail - either defeated from without, or corrupted from within. By having this right to bear arms distributed broadly among the populace, to individuals or very small communities and neighborhoods, an aggressor would have to expend far more energy than simply defeating a centralized force. In keeping with the principle that our form of government is to be "by the people", and thus government only by the consent of the governed, the people themselves needed to be the last line of defense - those who would still retain what powers that might remain, should their centralized structures collapse.
Today, we have far more powerful arms than our founders could have imagined, and many argue that (for instance) powerful automatic or semi-automatic "assault rifles" are simply too dangerous to be allowed for individual private ownership. This is at least a position worthy of debate. Some would argue that in these modern times, there is no longer a threat from the collapse of government systems (into anarchy) and that devolution into government tyranny, be it foreign or domestic, would easily overwhelm a modern populace. I find both of these positions to be wishful (or defeatist) thinking. One can imagine myriad scenarios in which the collapse of centralized order into anarchy could ensue - pandemics, natural disasters, environmental destruction, debilitating warfare. The "friendly powers" of benign government we have come to trust could disappear, or be subverted into a force for mass subjugation. But unless the subjugators were bent upon global suicide, they would not wreak such broad-scale destruction that there were no longer any resources left to exploit. They would not "nuke" all the landscape where food, water and arable soil exist, nor totally destroy a potential slave-labor force. And anything less than such total destruction would leave remnants of an armed populace ready to surround, to infiltrate and to fight back - unless of course that populace had already been disarmed.
Whether it be defense against roving bands of marauders following a collapse into anarchy, or against the forces of a central power turned tyrannical, our founders intended that the people themselves be equipped with reasonable means to mount a defense of that "last mile", a means to retake control of their destiny.
But rather than attempt to defend the people's "right to bear arms" directly (the “A” in FACET), I would like to take a broader approach to the question of "grass-roots power". Let us put aside for a moment that the Second Amendment mentions "arms" specifically, and ask instead the broader question: What facilities should be widely distributed into the hands of the people, the individuals and small communities and neighborhoods, that would best serve as "defense in depth" of our liberty in the event of a fall into anarchy, or a tilt toward tyranny? In particular, might some combination of measures lessen somewhat our need for "commensurate firepower" in securing our long-term freedoms? I offer several below for your consideration.
Our forebears would be astonished at our present access to foodstuffs, reliably available during all seasons, imported from all across the country, and from around the world. They would think "What a wonderful luxury!" And they would be right. Most of the food we eat is produced by massive and centralized farms, major corporate "agribusiness", and they do a decent job, at least, of providing volume and consistency. But if we were to tell our founders that in exchange for this mechanized cornucopia, we have increasingly knuckled-under to regulations that squeeze out the family farmers, restrict the growing of crops in residential areas, and (in the name of "food safety") prohibit the free trade and exchange of homegrown, "unlicensed" food products among individuals - I think our founders would be reaching for their guns.
When the means of your sustenance is distant and centralized, entire populations are left at the mercy of corporations, their corporate well-being, their definitions of "nutrition" and "food safety", their pricing structures, and the continued and reliable availability of transport to distribute those food products to local markets. In times of extreme stress, toward anarchy or tyranny, these highly centralized structures are key vulnerabilities to be exploited. Halt the production or delivery of food, and a populace will fall with hardly a shot fired.
I would suggest:
"A well-stocked marketplace being necessary to secure health and well-being, the right of the people to local food production and trade shall not be infringed".
Note, however, that this defense-in-depth, the means to locally available food products, comes with some loss of short-term safety. It is hard enough to regulate the safety and consistency of foods produced in large, centralized facilities. It is far more difficult to provide such assurances in the trading of food produced by every home and garden. The cost of long-term distributed local food security is to accept some loss in short-term safety.
"One if by land, two if by sea." Communications is half of any successful military campaign, offense or defense. There is little that will lead more quickly to a breakdown into anarchy than the collapse of the ability to communicate. In advance of tyranny, in order to divide and conquer, an aggressor will first seek to disrupt communications among the populace, such that a coordinated defensive response cannot be mounted. Some have put forth the view that given modern weaponry (machine guns, helicopters, missiles), even a tyrannical elite that is outnumbered 100-to-1 by the general population could still prevail to subjugate a population armed with (at best) hand guns and rifles. This is open to debate, but if that aggressor can isolate us into uncoordinated islands, their likelihood of prevailing would increase substantially.
The three key strategic aspects of effective communication, critical in any military context, are Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability (think "CIA"!) Confidentiality is the ability to keep communications private or secret, such that an adversary who eavesdrops cannot learn what is being said. This is accomplished most generally through cryptography, a means of scrambling messages so that only those in possession of the right "keys" can descramble and read the message. In the early 1990s, the U.S. was sufficiently alarmed over the rise of arbitrarily strong cryptographic techniques that they outlawed the commercial export of techniques above a certain strength, hoping to thwart secret communications between the U.S. and foreign entities. Did you know that the Defense department designates cryptography as a "munition"? There are presently no restrictions upon the strength of cryptography that U.S. citizens may use personally and amongst each other. How's that for a "right to bear arms"!
Similarly, an adversary might intercept and try to "replace" a message with a false one, an attack upon the integrity of the message. Once again, a cryptographic technique known as "digital signatures" can serve to make such forgeries effectively impossible.
But most of all, a military adversary, or would-be tyrannical government would want to control the availability of communications. This is where the advent of the Internet, with its "billion channel, billion route" structures, is one of the greatest forces for freedom the world has ever known. Armed with our hand-held devices, we are collectively a "billion on-the-scene reporters", a force almost impossible to shutdown (at least, not without turning off all electricity). With the means of widespread communications distributed into the hands of individuals, the days of repressive government's ability to promote lies as truth are waning significantly. But if this access to broad-spectrum communication is to serve us in dark times, we must remain vigilant against attempts to restrict its protective features or balkanize access by region. Already, there are technologies being developed to help ensure that the Internet cannot be centrally throttled (see "FreedomBox"), where peer-to-peer forms of routing help dispense with the reliance upon centralized routers and servers.
In summary:
"Effective communications being critical to the defense of a free state, the right of the people to secured messaging and an open Internet shall not be infringed."
Note, however, that the same techniques the people may use to secure their messaging against oppression are also techniques that criminals exploit to conduct their particular brands of harm. Thus once again, we must accept some loss of safety in defense of enduring freedom.
Most all of our energy comes from the sun. The sun's energy heat the oceans, leading to high-elevation precipitation that feeds our lakes and streams, and fills our reservoirs (to power our generator dams). The sun's differential atmospheric heating leads to the winds that can be used to extract energy through wind-turbines. Over countless millennia, the sun's energy powered the photosynthesis of low-energy minerals into complex high-energy carbohydrates, through plants whose many trillion-ton biomass has left residues we burn as coal and petroleum.
Everything that runs, runs on energy. The growth of our crops, the machines that process materials into goods, the vehicles that move those goods to markets, the heating and cooling of our homes and businesses, the refrigeration of our food stores, the lights that allow us to operate after hours, and of course the ability to communicate and process information - these ALL require energy in one form or another. A conquering adversary would certainly want to disrupt the people's access to energy, and a government headed towards tyranny (not to mention, energy corporations headed towards higher profits) would prefer a populace dependent upon highly centralized and "controllable" forms of power generation.
Aside from firearms, the one "defense-in-depth" capability a free people should demand is the guaranteed access to local power generation. If we are not to trust our future security only to our centralized armed forces and their armories, why would we allow ourselves to be held hostage to highly centralized and distant power facilities?
Even if wind and solar power were insufficient alone to serve all of our local energy needs, home wiring that differentiates high-amp circuits (for heating, air conditioning, washers and dryers) from low-amp circuits could shut down the high-amp side in emergencies involving distant grid power, allowing (say) led lighting and communications (TV, phone, Internet) to continue uninterrupted in every home. Should a "blitzkrieg" attack take out our centralized energy facilities, nothing will lead to widespread fear, panic, and anarchy faster than millions of homes left for weeks in the dark, with no access to information as to what is happening around them and elsewhere. In contrast, a populace that retains power for communications can remain calm and plot effective response and mitigations.
Among the world's repressive regimes, it "makes sense" to allow the populace only centralized and "controllable" access to food, communications, energy and transportation (and arms? Forget about it!) For such regimes, "national security" means the security of the ruling elite, not the security of the populace. Such restrictions are explained to the people as measures taken "for their own safety", for which they should be thankful. But for a democratic "government by the people", the defense-in-depth afforded by having significant control of such facilities in the hands of the people at the "grass-roots" level should hardly be a matter of debate.
To wit:
"The availability of energy being critical to the functioning of a free society, the right of the people to local power generation shall not be infringed."
Local energy generation can even extend to localized facilities for refining waste plant matter and vegetable oils into liquid fuels, for power generation when solar and wind are uncooperative. But once again, do take note that having millions of smallish energy generation facilities distributed among the communities will lead to safety concerns you would not generally face with much larger, distant facilities. You always trade some short-term safety for longer-term security.
Personal motorized transportation is yet another factor of the "defense in depth" in securing liberties against oppression. In this country at least, it is a strong symbol of individual freedom - the freedom to find and engage employment far afield of your place of residence, to visit in person with a far greater range of fellow citizens, to move goods about in support of commerce, and if need be, to travel far and wide when local situations might devolve into serious danger. Of course, in a real battle with adversary forces, the availability of individual and private transport, to move personnel, supplies, and even arms, could well become critically important.
And what price do we pay for this motorized freedom? Most every day of the year, approximately 100 men, women and children die in automobile collisions. Granted we have done much to improve these statistics over the years, and will continue to make safety improvements. But this does not diminish the point - we "tolerate" a massive hit to our daily safety in order to afford the freedoms of personally-controlled motor travel.
We do not claim that we have an inalienable "right to drive" - it is considered a driving "privilege", and one must pass certain tests to qualify. Likewise, the current "right to bear arms" is not generally extended to felons, nor to land mines and anti-aircraft missiles. Even so, there is an understood "right to travel" within the country, to access transportation services at a grass-roots level, to have privately controlled transport widely available, and to not have to file an itinerary with the government stating where you intend to go and whom you intend to see, nor even to know what you may be transporting (in the absence of independent evidence of crime). Thus, with some degree of interpretation, we arguably exercise a "right" to access private and personal transportation.
Together with the original Second Amendment, we thus have the acronym "FACET" to recall "Food, Arms, Communications, Energy, and Transportation". The reinterpreted Second Amendment, with respect to:
Food: "A well-stocked marketplace being necessary to secure health and well-being, the right of the people to local food production and trade shall not be infringed".
Arms: "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."
Communications: "Effective communications being critical to the defense of a free state, the right of the people to secure messaging and an open Internet shall not be infringed."
Energy: "The availability of energy being critical to the functioning of a free society, the right of the people to local power generation shall not be infringed."
Transportation: "Access to spontaneous travel being fundamental to a free society - the right of the people to personal motor transportation shall not be infringed."
All of these rights have two things in common: They place power, and responsibility, into the hands of the people directly, distributing power from centralized elites to a broader and more defensible base, and they all involve accepting a degree of loss of short-term or personal safety, in the defense of our long-term security and liberty.
As the time comes to debate the appropriate, "modern" interpretation of the U.S. Second Amendment and the right to bear arms, let us at least do so with the understanding of what it was I believe the founding fathers had intended to give us - the right to stand, with our very own hands on the wheel, at the helm of our own ship.