Tag: gun violence

The Stupid Factor

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When, in the course of human history, people coalesce around a cause, invariably, it is the fringe and fanatical that visit shame and derision on said cause.

Case in point:

Climate change is real. To assume otherwise is to ignore both established science and our own eyes. Further, and this is also beyond argument, climate change is linked to humans—the extent to which that link is made, whether larger or smaller, can be debated. The fact remains that human action has influenced our climate; our climate is changing, and barring any technological leap in space travel, we have but this one planet on which to live.

There are several sources to this statement (Indian and Greek, among others), but the sentiment is the same:

“A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they will never sit.”

Whether it is the group Just Stop Oil or Riposte Alimentaire, I believe in their causes. However, I also know that while fossil fuels are limited in their amount worldwide and the cause of enormous amounts of pollution, I also know that neither Van Gough, Da Vinci, nor Monet will be painting anything ever again. Throwing paint or soup at these masterpieces does two things.

First, it brings attention to the cause. I would argue in the wrong way. Again, I believe in their cause. However, their cause, while not getting nearly enough meaningful action from politicians and nations, is not a generally unknown niche item. Everyone has heard about climate change. You don’t need to draw attention to it as if it’s been wallowing in a distant dark corner. You are turning millions of like-minded individuals from standing with you. They want to crawl into a hole to avoid being associated with you and your idiotic stunt.

Second, I believe the attention you ultimately sought with your stunt had less to do with your cause and more to do with you having your picture taken standing next to a disfigured masterpiece covered in paint or soup while you gloomily pose, maybe glued to the frame.

Grassroots activism takes organization and time. It takes determination and persistence. Ultimately, it takes moving the Overton Window so politicians feel they must be part of your movement. And that comes from the inside. It comes from boldly participating in legislative hearings. It comes from lobbying legislators at all levels repeatedly. It does not come from petitions or stunts.

We need change on many social issues, not the least of which are climate change for the planet and gun violence in America. Mothers Against Drunk Driving set the template for success. Moms Demand Action, Everytown, and other gun violence groups have adopted that template. Just Stop Oil and Riposte Alimentaire may have arms of their organizations that attempt the same measures as these more successful organizations. All I know is what I see on the news. And the photos I see on the news, especially as an art lover, make me cringe. The tiny conspiracy theorist in the back of my head wonders whether these stunts because they are so antithetical to the genuinely just cause, are backed by the petroleum industry to discredit all climate change activists. I hope I’m wrong.

Either way, stop gluing yourself to paintings, throwing paint on masterpieces, and throwing food at art. You look like an idiot and damage your supposed cause. These masterpieces have survived (so far) because art restoration professionals consider it an honor and duty to protect and preserve the art. The activists should adopt that level of care and dedication, again, in whose cause I believe, before a masterpiece is lost because of their stunts. Passion alone will not win the day. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. One cannot plant a tree tomorrow morning and expect to sit in its shade in the afternoon.  

Today

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This is not about me.

I have never lost anyone to gun violence.

Never a family member or a friend.

So, this is not about me.

Emblazoned into my memory are the events of this date in 2014.

That day changed my life. I can tell you where I was as I followed the news.

But this is not about me.

26 children and 9 educators lost their lives that day.

Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.

I live in Rhode Island.

Next door. Down the street. Around the corner.

I have children. At one point, they were the same ages as those murdered.

I have the memories of my children at that age.

And I have memories of them older because mine were not murdered.

Those parents and those family members were denied future memories.

Denied every hug. Denied every day.

Gun violence did that to them. Stole their children. Stole their futures. All of theirs.

The aftermath was sickening. I had to do something. And I did.

But this is not about me.

Change would occur. Gun violence would be addressed at the federal level.

Finally.

Except it wasn’t. Nothing changed.

Except for ever more carnage. Ever more murder.

And ever more acceptance of this being “normal.”

Some of us remain outraged.

Some demand change.

Some work with survivors. Some work with politicians.

Many offer thoughts and prayers. And move on.

Knowing nothing will change. Some don’t want change.

It’s baked into the American fabric.

It’s the price of “freedom.”

Freedom?

This is not about me.

Except it is.

It’s about me. And you.

Because the list of those not affected by gun violence shrinks every day.

Will I be affected by gun violence?

Will I know someone injured?

Will I know someone was killed?

Will I be a victim?

The list grows ever shorter while nothing changes.

This is about me.

Because I don’t want to join the ranks of survivors, family, friends, victims.

This is about me.

I suffer from hiraeth. I long for euthymia. Logic. Reason. Accountability. Community.

Read this out loud to yourself.

Because this is about you.

My Generational Fallacy

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Maxwell and Finnegan

I am a middle-aged white man. And I can recognize some, but not all, of the societal privileges afforded to me for no other reason than I am a white man. I feel it is important to establish that upfront. I have accomplished things in life partly due to my efforts and partly because of my accident of birth. Accident of birth. What else can I call it? In addition to being born a white male, I was also born in the United States. Again, not of my choosing. But here I am, and I accept the failings in my life as my burden, my fault. I take full ownership of my failures but share my victories as being due to my efforts, others’ efforts, white privilege, and the combination of those factors occurring here in the United States.

The paragraph above is enough to exclude me from the Libertarian party, who believe they alone are responsible for the air they breathe, and they’d like you to thank them for making enough for you like it’s Reardon Steel.

With that backdrop established, let me tell you a little about my upbringing. My first best friend was black. We shared the same first name. When he or I moved away, I’m not sure what happened (I was young and cursed with a terrible memory), my next best friend was Jewish. And the thing is, it didn’t matter. I didn’t care. Or I hadn’t learned from society to hate yet. The only thing I now hate is willful ignorance. I learned so much from my friend about Judaism, its holidays, and the amazing food! I was raised Catholic (as was most of the state in which I was raised). I assumed everyone was Catholic. It wasn’t until much later that I learned Catholicism was itself but a branch of Christianity and Christianity a branch of organized religion.

Throughout my life, until I was probably 30 years old, I assumed that the problems of the past were destined to be solved by my generation. Racism being foremost in my mind and the easiest to solve. It was just wrong! That’s easy to fix, I thought. It was, I thought, the low-hanging fruit of justice, and I assumed I no longer lived in a country responsible for strange fruit (listen to the song). I also thought later in life that gun violence in America would be easily fixed after 26 first and second-graders (and educators) were slaughtered at Sandy Hook in Newtown, CT. In both situations, I learned there was a generational fallacy in my thinking. I assumed my and subsequent cohorts, armed with better information, compassion, and the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, would see the obvious path to social justice. How I was wrong! Chronological snobbery? Maybe. I now believe it is a combination of regional biases and willful intransigence that prevents solving society’s problems.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would be 94 years old now if he had not been murdered at age 39 in 1968. What he did, what all who fought for civil rights in America in the 1950s and 1960s, and accomplished, cannot be appreciated using today’s time prism. The Overton Window has undoubtedly shifted on civil rights and many other topics.  What they accomplished then, at great personal risk and, for some, with their lives, is monumental. However, the Overton Window is not a slider moving in one direction but a pendulum constantly swinging between the warmth of progress and the cold intransigence of those benefiting from the status quo. “Make America Great Again” is the most recent example of this philosophical ossification. “Progress” is seen as a threat to their privilege. Equity and equality are, ironically, seen as unfair. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs are seen as nefarious as Affirmative Action. After George Floyd was murdered by the police, DE&I programs blossomed nationwide, and workplaces and communities benefited from new thinking. Unfortunately, today we see the pendulum swinging the other way and DE&I programs being cut in red states all across an even more divided America.

I saw an interview with Martin Sheen recently. He has been arrested for protesting more times than he can count. And it has cost him roles. He said, “If what you believe doesn’t cost you anything, then you’re left to question its value.” He is 83 years old now. And I couldn’t help but appreciate his passion.

I confess to being a West Wing fanatic. I adored that show (especially the first four seasons written by Aaron Sorkin). I think the season finale of the second season (Two Cathedrals) is the best episode of television ever created. That said, and while I remain a devout fan, I also think it ruined politics for me and a generation of those like me. I assumed life was a meritocracy and not the plutocracy and cleptocracy it truly is. I appreciated the sincere debate depicted in the show and assumed that was how politics worked. Today, there is no debate, only sound bites, social media gotcha’s, net zero wins, and tribalism, where a foundation of facts cannot be agreed upon. We can’t even agree on what is a fact!

Martin Sheen lives how Aaron Sorkin writes.

Contrast that with today’s news that 25-year-old NASCAR driver Noah Gragson was suspended indefinitely for liking a disgusting meme laughing about George Floyd’s death. He’s 25 years old. So, no, I no longer believe my generation will solve society’s ills no more than I think my children’s generation (or Noah Gragson’s) will move us forward.

They say the first step in solving a problem is acknowledging there is a problem. We haven’t graduated from that simple first step.  There is no low-hanging fruit when those on the other side will embrace any atrocity rather than let you “win.” And for that, society loses.

My generational fallacy has cost me. Not as much as those in the fight every day. It is a cost for which I feel the need to apologize. It has cost me from seeing the issues clearer. Evidence of that is easy to see. Reread this and count the number of times I say a version of “assume.” However, contrary to the familiar American saying, in this case, it has only made an ass out of me.  I hope to do better. I dream of our country doing better. And now, not generationally.

Today

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“Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.”

With these words, quoted from Aeschylus, Robert Kennedy consoled African American campaign workers (and millions worldwide) in Indianapolis on this night 55 years ago after having announced to the crowd that Martin Luther King, Jr. had been assassinated earlier that evening in Memphis.

If you get a chance today, watch the speech he gave. It is shocking in its beauty and honesty. It was reported that the Secret Service told Kennedy they could not guarantee his safety if the crowd became violent. He gave the speech anyway.

He said, “Let us dedicate ourselves to what the ancient Greeks wrote so many years ago, to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. was 39 years old on that day. Imagine a different universe where he lived. What would the United States look like today? Would we have faced the horrific stain of slavery head-on and ensured equality among all our citizens? Would we finally be living in a nation where his (now grown) are judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character? Maybe. Probably not. Intransigence and ennui ossify both the disengaged and unaffected. It is worth noting, Robert Kennedy was dead two months later, himself the victim of America’s gun violence.

At 58 years old, after a decade of railing against gun violence, that uniquely American disease, I am still haunted by the following sentiments when tending to my own heart and not the soul of our troubled nation:

Robert Kennedy:

“Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events. It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”

“The purpose of life is to contribute in some way to making things better.”

“Few men are willing to brave the disapproval of their peers, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.:

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

“If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.”

“There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.”

“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

Christopher Hitchens:

“Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. The grave will supply plenty of time for silence.”

“What I used to say to people, when I was much more engagé myself, is that you can’t be apolitical. It will come and get you. It’s not that you shouldn’t be neutral. It’s that you won’t be able to stay neutral.”

“For years, I declined to fill in the form for my Senate press credential that asked me to state my ‘race,’ unless I was permitted to put ‘human.’ The form had to be completed under penalty of perjury, so I could not in conscience put ‘white,’ which is not even a color let alone a ‘race,’ and I sternly declined to put ‘Caucasian,’ which is an exploded term from a discredited ethnology. Surely the essential and unarguable core of King’s campaign was the insistence that pigmentation was a false measure: a false measure of mankind (yes, mankind) and an inheritance from a time of great ignorance and stupidity and cruelty, when one drop of blood could make you ‘black.”

Today, a former president was arrested and indicted on criminal charges in Manhattan. Donald Trump is the antithesis of Robert Kennedy or Martin Luther King, Jr. because while they carried the torch of justice to move society ever closer to a bright future, he chose to pour gasoline on smoldering embers and moved us backward toward our dark past.

At a time when our country is as divided as ever, short of outright conflict, I hope there are more of us whose “purpose of life is to contribute in some way to making things better” than those who want to see it burn.

Terrorism

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I am 58 years old. I grew up between the memory-searing days of November 22, 1963, and September 11, 2001; days everyone remembers where they were when they heard the news. My childhood was relatively calm. Vietnam was a million miles away, and I was too young to understand the protests here at home. Watergate was my first entry into politics, and that’s because my father was always informed and made sure I understood the importance of the events. Trauma in my youth was limited to my Cincinnati Reds losing Game Six of the 1975 World Series and me having to go to school the next day to face my Red Sox-loving friends.

And then, on September 11, 2001, a new (to Americans here at home) word entered our vocabulary: Terrorism. That day, we realized we were not immune to the horrors of geopolitical terrorism. The “two oceans” buffer we enjoyed no longer protected us. Now the horror of war came to us in our homes and places of work. We all know someone affected by that day. And we have never been the same.

And while we wanted revenge or justice as a united front, we were left deflated because, unlike times past, those that brought us that pain did not represent a government, a nation, a colored blotch on a map between other colored blotches. They were individuals following one deranged man and hiding in mountainous caves somewhere. And so, we bombed mountains and carried out military missions with so-called surgical precision to maintain public support with anesthetized news.

Before 9/11, men in the United States did not wear beards in the current numbers. Fashion? Maybe. Or maybe it was because our military grew beards in the Middle East to assimilate with the local population and brought that look back home. Interesting that US men now look like those we sought to destroy.

And so, a generation of children, my children, grew up in a world where terrorism from foreigners was a threat. We took our coats, belts, and shoes off at airports, carried only 3 oz bottles of liquid on planes, and saw everyone who looked different from us as a potential sleeper cell. We thought the greatest threat to America was from without. We should have been paying closer attention.

Two years before 9/11, an incident in Colorado laid the groundwork for the real threat to America. On April 20, 1999, two students from Columbine High School shot and killed 12 students and one teacher and injured 21 more with the guns they brought to school that day. In addition to the trauma it caused a community and the shock it sent through America, it was only the first of many mass shootings that saw the rise of “thoughts and prayers” and little else in Washington.

The massacre of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, was a turning point for many, including me. Filled with rage that we didn’t have to live in fear of sending our children to school wondering if they would come home, groups formed, political pressure was generated, and little was done. Time and again, politicians fell back on the Second Amendment as if it had descended from the heavens, God’s will that gun-lover “freedom” supersedes your neighbor’s life. Politicians (mostly Republicans) have this perverted notion that the founding fathers not only walked on water and did no wrong but also possessed the gift of foresight, knowing and understanding the tremendous technological advancements firearms would take. It seems there is no finish line in man’s quest to find better, more efficient ways of killing other men. Once relegated to the battlefield, the NRA paid politicians to ensure citizens had access to guns in numbers and lethality never conceived by the average 58-year-old, never mind those in the 1780s.

The intransigence and callousness of these politicians play out the same way after every mass shooting, whether in a school, nightclub, movie theater, outdoor concert, church, grocery store, or workplace. First, there are notices that they are monitoring the situation. Then “thoughts and prayers” from them and their spouse. Then admonitions not to politicize the case when the facts haven’t been published yet. Then talk of not wanting to punish the law-abiding, gun-owning citizenry. Then deflections akin to “criminals don’t follow laws.” Then time passes, people forget, and nothing changes. Until the next breaking news story of the latest mass shooting, and then the carousel starts all over again. And the narrative is changing. Some law enforcement organizations and news organizations no longer refer to them as “mass shootings” or “active shooter” situations. They are now referred to as “active aggressor” situations. We have removed the weapon from the story. Mental health is the culprit, not the innocent weapon designed to turn human flesh into jelly.

Please understand. There have been changes made. The groups formed after Sandy Hook have done fantastic work on the state level in many states nationwide. But on the federal level, it’s the same old story. Mass shootings, because they generate an initial spike in calls for gun control, instill fear in the gun-hugging public. They run out and buy more guns for fear (how irrational is this?) that the federal government will stop their ability to own enough guns to arm a small country. Gun sales surge under Democrat presidents because of this irrationality.

While some nibbling has been done around the edges of the problem, meaningful things will only be done at the federal level when we are willing to revisit the Second Amendment. Justice Scalia (writing for the Supreme Court majority) said a well-regulated militia meant the individual. Somehow a state’s National Guard became Cletus out back with his 40 guns, preparing to take on his tyrannical government. America now has more guns than people. My dream, and that is all it is because I am powerless to enact change, is that America will one day wake up from this self-induced nightmare and repeal the Second Amendment, followed by a gun buyback program followed by lengthy prison sentences for those still owning these incredibly effective methods of death.

We have raised a generation of children who endure “active aggressor” drills at school and are willingly offered up as sacrifices at the altar of “freedom.” We have failed a generation and will continue to do so until the United States is willing to look in the mirror and see the terrorist with a gun staring back.

Lost

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A sentence in The Silence of the Lambs has always stuck with me. Playing a cat and mouse game with young Clarice Starling, Dr. Hannibal Lecter, in his burgeoning respect for the young FBI agent, slips in a clue to the identity of “Buffalo Bill” by saying, “We begin by coveting what we see every day.”

In other words, what we know, what we’ve experienced, is our “normal.” Every child knows only one childhood, and while the grass is always greener at your friend’s house (because you don’t see their life behind closed doors), we only know our life as “normal.” We are all “middle class” in that respect. In the simplistic world of childhood, we understood that there were kids who had it better than we did and kids who had it worse. We, regardless of who we were, were in the middle. Normal.

In genuine Monty Python “Four Yorkshiremen” tradition, I now look at children today and lament the ease with which they can communicate (email/cell phones), their easy access to information (the internet), the societal shifts in the Overton window concerning LGBTQ+, race relations, and other socioeconomic changes they now see as “normal.” However, I also cringe that my generation didn’t fix enough of the outstanding issues plaguing the America of my youth (and compounded the incomplete list by adding so many more complicated problems). If the goal of every generation is to leave the world better than we found it, we have failed. We are leaving behind a world that may not be inhabitable because of climate change. “Here, kids! Apply this SPF 1,000,000 suntan lotion before going outside, and don’t forget your space suit when walking to the bus stop.”

And it goes far beyond climate change, as catastrophic as that is. Children today see cheating (from Trump on down) as the way to get ahead. And that’s because there are no consequences for bad behavior—quite the contrary. We reward bad behavior with advancement and success (unless you lose to someone less moral than you). Drive 100 mph? No problem. Police are only on tv and in movies. Cheat on your wife? No problem. It must have been her fault. Lie at work? No problem. Blame someone else. There are no negative consequences for bad behavior, only the promise of advancement over those suckers following the rules. And that’s the flipside. Those who are moral and adhere to societal rules are “sheep” destined to be led to slaughter by those not afraid to wield the knife. So, not only are there no negative consequences for bad behavior, but there are negative consequences for good behavior. Think about that.

And don’t come at me with, “It’s because of the lack of God in the classroom.” Evangelicals are the most hypocritical flock around. Already willing to accept the bible, angels, and demons as real (while ignoring Trump’s egregious mendacities, viciousness, and megalomaniacal march toward dictatorship), their unfailing support for him is genuinely disgusting and devoid of logic. Fiction is real and facts irrelevant—Trump’s army of pretzel-twisted moralists.

The “Lost Generation” was so named because so many born between 1883 and 1900 had their youth and young adulthood stolen by World War I and death, and survivors were disenfranchised wanderers condemned to see their children fight and die in World War II.

Our failure to address the problems we inherited, coupled with our selfishness and abdication of responsibility, have created a new Lost Generation. This is a generation born into the normalcy of school shootings, movie theater shootings, grocery store shootings, church shootings, concert shootings, club shootings, (insert setting here) shootings, open carry, concealed carry, constitutional carry, and societal harikari, racism, hatred, whataboutism, science is bad, education is worse, bullshit.

This Lost Generation will raise future generations further devoid of responsibility, racing toward an uninhabitable planet with no backup available and mass shootings so commonplace journalists will no longer cover them. “Thoughts and prayers” will be reserved for events not “baked into” American freedom and exceptionalism. There will be ever more rule-breaking, selfish predators advancing through the devoured crowd of ethical chumps still inhabiting the remnants of civilized society—shame on us. We, Generation X (1965-1980), failed in our mandate to leave the world better than we found it. And we learned it from the generation before us, the Baby Boomers (1946-1964), who taught us excess, greed, and self-centeredness as a winning formula. It was our “normal,” it was what we coveted. So, too, the generations after us, the Millennials (1981-1996) and Generation Z (1997-2012).

“We begin by coveting what we see every day.” It is our normal. And we are raising a new lost generation on a dying planet. We covet that which we know. And all we know is wrong.

Control

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Can this be how it works? I’m 57 years old and see more life in the rearview mirror than the open road ahead. With that perspective, I find it’s become essential to reflect on what I’ve done with my time on this planet. Blissfully ignorant of the repercussions of news events growing up in bucolic suburbia, adulthood, parenthood, citizenship demanded my attention as I aged. I’ve experienced events no one wants. People summarize it as “life” when you see death. I’m not special. Just frustrated.

After the massacre at the movie theater in Aurora, CO, I began to write. Not with the expectation of affecting change, but rather to give my anger, my emotions, an outlet, an offramp for the toxic blood poisoning my body. I saw gun violence stealing a generation. While some social issues had moved the Overton Window, political intransigence (keep cashing the NRA’s checks!) and eventual American ennui accepted gun violence as baked into the American fabric in the name of “freedom.”

After the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newtown, CT, I began to speak. Surely, a tragedy of this scale would shock Americans (and politicians) out of their stupor. Nope! I talked to groups in Texas as the lone spokesperson for the Brady Campaign in Texas. The only one. That alone tells you all you need to know about the calculus of “I NEED my gun, dead kids and teachers be damned.” Thoughts, prayers, and sad face emojis flooded social media until America’s fruit fly attention span moved on to the latest “tragedy” affecting Kim Kardashian.

My anger peaked with the death of my wife. Fuck cancer makes a great tweet, a guttural reaction without consequence. Utterly suicidal and dying with my wife, I could not yell at the tumor. I took it out on God for a while (also useless) and even turned to God for a bit (utterly meaningless). There was no one to blame, no revenge to be had. No offramp for my anger.

And then Americans, in the obvious next step for a society that had abdicated all personal responsibility and suffered no consequences, elected a narcissistic moron president—a billionaire (if you believe him) speaking for the uneducated rubes. Merit and logic were dead. With each lie, with each crime, I expected consequences. None came. Robert Mueller fumbled the ball with no defenders anywhere near him. Facts were relegated to the trash bin. Tweets became governmental edicts. And I waited. Furious.

When I get angry (when I get down), it is because things should be easier. “Keep the simple things simple; the hard things are hard enough.” But nothing was easy. Changing a light bulb resulted in the glass bulb snapping off the metal base, a trip or two to Lowes, and a call to the electrician. Nothing was easy. Ultimately, I realized it was an absolute lack of control. There was nothing I could do about any of it. My wife was dead, guns were more important than life, freedom from fact and responsibility replaced actual democracy, and rabid evangelicals believed in Trump as the messiah. Stop the world; I want to get off.

And now we have Ukraine. Again, one man brings the world to the point of a world war—one man. Ukrainians are fighting to survive- as a nation and a people. “Denazifying” Ukraine? Really?

I’m reminded of Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot speech as I watch an army destroy entire cities. Stepping back for a second, it seems bizarre that NATO and the UN watch the massacres with tepid financial penalties because Ukraine doesn’t belong to their club. It’s like a high school clique turning its back on a less cool student getting beaten up because they don’t wear the “right” jeans. I understand the political ramifications of engagement. But on a human level, it seems callous and impotent.

So here I am—no one special, poisoned with anger and unable to control or change anything. Hell, I can’t even watch baseball now! The billionaires are too busy fighting with the millionaires. I get the feeling that if aliens did visit earth, they’d look down and say, “Nah, they’re petulant adolescents with nascent technology and a penchant for killing each other. Keep driving.”

So, my clock continues to tick down, and I’m not ignorant enough for its promised bliss. I’ve read Viktor Frankl and Thomas Paine but still cannot find reason or acceptance. How do I accept all of this? How do I “let it go?” No, seriously, I’m asking.

Freedom…

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The First Amendment to the United States Constitution reads:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution reads:

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.

Can someone, perhaps a Constitutional scholar (or someone who attended the University of Hard Knocks because, apparently, that’s the same thing), explain to me how these “rights” as written by James Monroe came to be interpreted as freedom from responsibility? Please?

Reeling from a global pandemic, science handed us a way out. And it was made free and accessible to everyone! And yet, after sitting on our asses for a year, we cannot be bothered to get vaccinated. We can’t be bothered to do what is right for our family, our neighbors, our nation, the world. Because FREEDOM! But freedom from what? Can someone answer that question? What’s the end of that phrase? Freedom from what? 

I see yard signs now saying UNMASK OUR CHILDREN! Unmask? Oh, you mean to leave the decision to protect your child, my family, and everyone too stupid to vaccinate themselves to you and your internet search medical degree?

I still wear a mask inside stores. Do you know why? I’m vaccinated! The CDC says I no longer need to wear a mask indoors. I wear the mask indoors for two reasons. First, because the vaccine has provided cover for those too selfish to vaccinate themselves; in other words, those unvaccinated can claim to be vaccinated and therefore no longer need to wear a mask indoors. I wear a mask indoors with those I do not know because I do not trust them. Their freedom from responsibility leaves them vulnerable to the virus and a prime candidate to join 600,000 other dead Americans. And, honestly, I’m done worrying about their lives. If they’re too selfish and cloaked in the wisdom granted by the Fox News science and medical experts Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, and Sean Hannity, I don’t care if they live or die. Just as they have rid themselves of caring whether I live or die. Second, I wear the mask because I could be carrying the virus and be asymptomatic due to the vaccine. Despite my anger at the unvaccinated, I wear it to protect them from me.

 Freedom from responsibility has replaced both the first and second Amendments. We have the freedom to say and do anything we want, but we now assume it was granted without responsibility. No blowback is expected or appreciated. We have been locked indoors for a year. And when finally bored enough, we ventured out. Some of us were vaccinated. But the bored move about freely. And as soon as we ventured out of our homes, we did so, not with the vaccine, but with our guns. Free to leave our homes, Americans are now subjected to multiple mass shootings a day. Because Freedom! But, again, no one finishes that phrase. Freedom from what, if not responsibility?

I weigh too much. Guess what? It’s because I overeat. Not because of my boss, my spouse, my government, or my family. And guess what? When I take responsibility for my weight and eat better foods and less of it, I lose weight! If I eat red meat, there is a chance my heart will suffer, or my cells may rebel in cancer. The danger I am subjecting others to is limited. My family will suffer my loss. But my job will be filled within a week, and the world will carry on. However, not vaccinating myself leaves me vulnerable, along with everyone with whom I come in contact. The danger is expanded exponentially—the exposed beyond just me. And to do that to others is selfish and devoid of responsibility. 

The irony of this situation is that those refusing to be vaccinated directly infringe on my freedoms! I may soon be required to wear a mask everywhere again because the unvaccinated will drive us back into restrictions and lockdowns. I did the right thing for everyone, but I may soon be restricted from moving about freely because of the unvaccinated.

The first definition of socialism in the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines socialism as:

Any of the various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods.

Can we agree that seatbelts are a socialistic response to automobile injuries and deaths? Can we agree that highways are a socialistic response to bad roads being too expensive for each of us to build alone? Can we agree that the military that the right fawns over and spends almost a trillion dollars on a year is a socialistic response to existential or dogmatic geopolitical threats? If so, can we not also agree that solutions to problems need to be made on a granular level exclusive of a nation’s political definition? Can we agree that it is possible and appropriate to have a socialistic response to a problem within a democratic republic? That perhaps reductio ad absurdum or ad hominem arguments against proper answers to issues are simpleminded, foolhardy, and just plain wrong?   

 My rights are being infringed as a vaccinated citizen both by those who will not vaccinate themselves and those who think a gun gives them power and absolution. Freedom from responsibility is now the American creed. 

Groundhog Day, Again

~ thoughtsatlarge ~ Leave a comment

I’m pissed, and I’m tired, again. We’ve had another mass shooting in America. Surprise!

Our Founding Fathers (capitalized for respect!) were human, both flawed and determined. Their intellect and debate resulted in the living breathing document we call the Constitution. It, like them, is flawed and determined. It, like them, should not be considered sacrosanct. As a living, breathing document, created by humans, not gods, it is malleable to time. It is time we repeal the Second Amendment and confiscate the guns.

Sorry, Mr. President, sorry Congress, the United States is not burdened with higher levels of mental health issues than other countries. It is merely awash in guns. That is the problem. And until we face it, “active shooter” training in schools, emergency direction notices before movies, “thoughts and prayers” after every shooting from gutless politicians led by Republican intransigence at the direction of their NRA marionette masters will result in a continuing momentary sense or shock followed by a pandemic ennui throughout the public.

We now consider mass shootings and daily gun violence the new normal in America. The rest of the world also sees it as the new normal in America, and wonders why. We don’t even bother to wonder why anymore. This is not normal and should not ever be considered normal. Gun violence is a scourge injected into our society by flooding our lives with guns. Guns or drugs, it’s the business model. Flood the streets with them, deposit the cash, sit back and watch the inevitable, ensuing death metastasize. And the solution? More guns! Guns as the answer to fear caused by guns. Good marketing technique! A terrible shift in our collective consciousness.

We wring our hands and lament the “impossible,” multifaceted response required to address gun violence. No! The answer is simple. Remove the guns. No guns, no gun violence. That is my position. Call me a Democrat, call me a liberal, call me an asshole. I don’t care. No guns, no gun deaths. The Twenty-first Amendment repealed the Eighteenth, ending prohibition. Write a new Amendment abolishing the Second. And then have a big bonfire for the 300 million plus guns in an America with a new normal.

Now?

~ thoughtsatlarge ~ Leave a comment

Enough

Is it too soon to talk about gun violence prevention after the murders in a Texas church?

Too soon? Insensitive? Politicizing?

Then can we talk about it related to Las Vegas?

No? Still too soon?

What about Orlando? Still too soon?

Yes?

Charleston? Roseburg? San Bernardino?

Really?

Washington Navy Yard?

Still? Hmmmm.

Surely Aurora?

No?

Okay, Sandy Hook?

No? Really? 5 years ago, almost?

Okay, you tell me. What time frame needs to pass before we can discuss an incident?

 

 

 

Still waiting.

 

No other country ranks their mass killings like the United States. No other country needs to rank them! No other country needs to rank the mass murders in their churches like the United States. Something is very wrong here. Sorry, Mr. President, Americans are not any more mentally deranged than any other country. The difference is access to guns. When is enough enough? When will Congress address this? Why do we tolerate inaction? Oh, sorry. Still too soon?