Oklahoma City, July 19, 2011: As I stopped for gas between Tulsa and Oklahoma City, on the counter of the convenience store was a copy of the Oklahoman newspaper. Other newspapers reported that the U.S. was in the midst of a budget battle with budget plans ranging from a stop-gap measure to reduce the debt by $1.5 trillion in ten years to “the fully Monty” — a $4 trillion reduction.

The headline said that Oklahoma’s Republican Senator Tom Coburn had just announced a plan to reduce the debt by $9 trillion over the next ten years. This was more than a 100% increase over anything else proposed, even by Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan, a leader of the far right movement in the House of Representatives.

In defense of Coburn, he seemed to have some good ideas that even progressives could support. He suggested raising the retirement age for Social Security to 69 by 2080, an idea that seems to make actuarial and economic sense. Most importantly, it makes common sense.

However, we all know that cut-throat measures by Republicans designed to make those who can least afford to pay the burden is nothing short of mean-spirited. It’s also bad economics, because as workers lose jobs or retirees benefits, there is less money in circulation to keep the consumer economy going.

Several hours later, I reached Oklahoma City. As soon I we arrived, I walked over to the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum. This is the memorial at the site of the former Alfred Murrah Federal Building which had been destroyed by Timothy McVeigh’s act of domestic terrorism on April 19, 1995.

In many ways, the museum is dedicated to healing, but I couldn’t help but think about how McVeigh could have had such hatred for the federal government that he was willing take 168 lives including 19 children under the age of 6.

Much has been written about how McVeigh’s life seemed to be characterized by a slow burn directed against any form of authority. When the U.S. Army decided that he was not fit to join the Special Forces, he became more bitter and simultaneously more enamored with violence The siege on the Branch Dividians in Waco, Texas in 1993 further infuriated him.

Over the course of time, his vague disdain for the federal government became a plot directed at federal workers inside the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. Almost single-handedly, he carried out a vicious plot in which innocent civilians became the victims of his rage.

Regrettably, hate is a basic human emotion. There have been Timothy McVeighs since the beginning of humankind, but few had access to the weapons of mass destruction that he had.

Visiting the site where McVeigh caused such carnage only reinforced how deeply violence is embedded in our society. It’s not the Senator Coburn advocates violence. However, in some ways his budget plan reflects a disdain for the federal government and the people that it serves with almost the same intensity as McVeigh. Using very different strategies, they both show very little empathy for those among us who are most in need.

Every person I’ve met in Oklahoma has been kind, generous, and courteous. I doubt that any of them have anything but disdain for McVeigh. However, the law of averages would say that some of them have voted for Tom Coburn. Coburn may not blow up a building and kill 168 people, but the machete that he wants to take to the federal budget to eliminate $9 trillion will inevitably result in the untimely deaths of far more than 168 people. The impact of McVeigh’s act was very visible. The proposals of others who seem to dislike the federal government as much as he did possibly causes more harm while being less visible. “The price of liberty is vigilance,” said abolitionist Wendell Phillips more than 150 years ago. It’s incumbent on all of us to see through the smoke screen at what damage will be done to innocent people in the name of balancing the budget.

The post McVeigh and Coburn: Two ways to hate the federal government appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Suppose that Timothy McVeigh had not been put to death for his horrific crime of blowing up the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995.  It’s quite possible that in the nearly ten years since he was executed at a federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, IN. he would have provided information that could have been helpful in a pre-emptive identification of Jared Lee Loughner, the shooter of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and eighteen other people in Tucson.

Currently a number of law enforcement officials, criminologists, psychologists, and psychiatrists are looking for common characteristics among individuals who commit assassinations or other terrible acts of terror.  As presented on “60 Minutes” just eight days after the shooting, experts have been looking for, and finding, characteristics that assassins have in common.  The U.S. Secret Service has studied 83 assassins and would-be assassins.  Among those with whom they have spoken are Sirhan Sirhan, assassin of Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, Arthur Bremer who shot former Alabama Governor when he was running for president in 1972 and Mark David Chapman who killed John Lennon in 1980.

Two characteristics that these and other assassins have are (1) in time they are willing to talk about their acts of violence and (2) they come to regret what they had done.

There is much to be learned from assassins while they are in prison.  Psychological profiles begin to emerge.  When this is combined with information derived examining the personal histories of assassins, patterns are formed.  It may be callous to say, but criminals of this sort are “living resources of information,” so long as they are alive.  As they get older, they will reveal more information and more will be discovered about their past histories.

Perhaps the most helpful information in finding potential assassins or mass murderers can be learned from the emerging field of brain imagery.  Scientists are learning more every day about the connection between the chemistry of the brain and human behavior, thoughts, and moods.

Loughner had five run-ins with the police at Pima Community College.  After the fifth incident, a strangely narrated tour of the campus that he posted on YouTube, Loughner was suspended from the school.  It was explained to both him and his parents that the suspension could not be lifted until he got a letter from a mental health official indicating “his presence at the College does not present a danger to himself or others.”

Suppose that laws were in place which required an individual such as Loughner, whose behavior was so frightening that certain students in his classes would only sit next to the door, to submit to a brain imaging test.  And suppose that the F.B.I. and other law enforcement agencies maintained a data bank of brain images from individuals who had succeeded  or attempted to succeed in assassinating someone else.  The image bank could be expanded to include terrorists and even those individuals who had been convicted of committing a variety of violent crimes.  If Loughner’s image seemed similar to the profile of assassins or other violent criminals, then action could be taken.  It would clearly be unconstitutional to lock him up because of his brain image, but he could be put on a watch list and certainly forbidden from purchasing a gun or ammunition.  Had those steps been taken, it’s quite possible that the dreadful events of January 8 would not have taken place.

Some might say that requiring Loughner to have a brain image test would be an invasion of privacy, but how is it different from requiring a suspicious driver from taking a blood alcohol test?  So long as he was Mirandized (a case that coincidentally came out of Arizona), his rights would be protected.

There are numerous reasons to outlaw capital punishment in the United States.  We have repeatedly executed innocent people.  It is state-sponsored killing.  To many, it is a barbaric act.  Well let’s add another reason.  We can learn much from studying those among us who do the most to damage us.  This is why Timothy McVeigh spending life in prison might have provided a clue that could have helped authorities identify Loughner prior to January 8.

As is frequently the case, conservatives have been very effective in framing the language of capital punishment.  Many people have come to believe that there is not “closure” on a capital crime until there is an execution.  But the U.S. is the only industrialized nation that has that notion.  It might be wise to “move the goal posts” on closure to capturing, trying, convicting, and sentencing to life in prison for a perpetrator of a horrible crime.  Washington Post reporter Laura Blumenfeld’s book Revenge: A Story of Hope is a wonderful description of  how to achieve closure to a violent crime without a death penalty.

Jared Lee Loughner has perpetrated terrible damage upon our society.  Strange as it may seem, he now can be of benefit to us.  Willing or not, he can be submitted to ongoing testing in a variety of ways including ones that have not yet been invented.  Should we take that approach, it’s just possible that he would unwittingly help us avoid similar incidents.

The post Capital punishment: Tucson provides another teachable moment appeared first on Occasional Planet.