Just a Little Light Reading
“Find the cost of freedom, buried in the ground
Mother earth will swallow you, lay your body down” - Stephen
Stills
“To give victory to the right, not
bloody bullets, but peaceful ballots only, are necessary." – Abraham Lincoln
“But I'm not givin' in an inch to fear
I promised myself
this year.
I feel like I owe it to someone” – David Crosby
I feel like I owe it to someone” – David Crosby
Regular readers may be surprised by the nature of this
posting – no jokes, no jests, no pop culture references as current events have
initiated a mindset in me that at one time I never could have conceivably
contemplated. With the recent rash of Right-wing, reactionary responses to the heartbreaking
shootings in Colorado, I must admit to now sometimes, sadly and seriously,
questioning if I even belong in this country any longer. In instance after instance it feels as if this
grand and noble experiment in democracy, in a free, liberated and thoughtful
people’s government, has been irrevocably and horrifically high-jacked and
harmed beyond all hope by the increasingly vocal and influential yokels, bigots
and un-intelligentsia that progressively dominate our social and political discourse.
These rebels of regression now not only own an entire political party, in the
GOP, but also a television network that serves as its persuasive propaganda
arm. It astounds and angers me that Conservatives
and gun proponents are actually
exploiting this tragic occurrence to contend that we need even more lenient gun
regulations, and this despite knowing that all the weaponry - the semi-automatic
assault rifle, the thousands of rounds of armor piercing bullets, the tear gas canisters
were purchased legally. They further attempt to make
the preposterous, nonsensical and exceedingly precarious proposition that if
others in the theatre had carried concealed firearms the massacre could have
been prevented or at least lessened. James Holmes came equipped with military-grade,
high-powered armaments and, was garbed in protective bulletproof armor. Can
anyone really think that an Old-West style shoot out in a panicky, dark,
crowded, smoke-filled movie theatre would have resulted in anything but further
and continued carnage while also making it extraordinarily difficult for the
police on the scene to sort out and stem the situation? Is a 2012 adaptation of
Dodge City with untrained assault weapon toting patrons possibly a logical
rejoinder to any dilemma? Yet this alarmingly escalating societal and governmental
propensity towards a solution of amplified aggression is in many ways just the
tip of the iceberg of the backward-leaning, counter-civilized and inhumane
behaviors and attitudes becoming readily accepted in this great land of ours.
America is getting more conservative, more intolerant, less compassionate and
less educated seemingly daily. The Grand
Old Party and its presidential candidate preach that education is unnecessary
and elite, certainly an obvious and easy way for the upper-class to prevent
those that they believe are beneath them from advancing financially and socially
in our society. Willard Romney, he of the Harvard MBA, is of the mind that
higher education is not intended for the masses but for the privileged few who
can afford to attend colleges and universities and has actually stated that one
gets the education one can afford. It’s an
idea that lacks any forethought or forward thinking, reeks of classism and
elitism and does nothing but damage the fortunes and future of our country. For
Mitt, advanced degrees are meant for him and his progeny, while the proper
position of the offspring of the impoverished and working class is in defense
of our state so that his boys can remain free, unencumbered and secure to crew and
play lacrosse. Economically, Romney
promotes the Paul Ryan plan, a policy that openly steals from the poor to give
to the rich. And those who are most severely damaged by this inexplicably
support it, possibly because they're too uninterested, uninformed and
uninvolved to be aware that they are being taken advantage of, used and
manipulated. The Republicans repeatedly
and proudly brazenly boast that they care nothing about the health and well-being
of the common man, the working class or those in poverty. Mitt is actually a
perfect negative representative of our time and of everything that’s wrong with
our country – he lacks empathy, he’s selfish, self-absorbed, intolerant,
elitist, classist, bullying, he has no core or convictions, and he lies as
easily as he draws breath. The woeful actuality that he is virtually tied with
Obama in polls at this point, a decent man who has been slandered and libeled
and personally attacked like no one in the history of American politics,
someone who has actually lived out the “America Dream,” no silver-spooner he,
says more about the gloomy gist of this treatise than all my amassed verbiage
could feasibly express.
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
A study in the Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery
found that the gun murder rate in the U.S. is at 19.5 percent, almost 20 times
higher than the next 22 richest nations combined – please pause and take that
in – over 20 times higher than 22 other nations combined. Among the world's 23 wealthiest countries, 80
percent of all gun deaths are American deaths and 87 percent of all children
killed by guns are American children. A
yearly average of 29,500 gunfire deaths has been recorded nationally by the
U.S. Department of Justice: Bureau of
Statistics for the past 30 years in America. We are not defending ourselves
with guns, we are slaughtering each other. American citizens do a far superior
job of slaying fellow Americans than any outside terrorist organization could
ever dream of or hope to do. Our passion and religious fervor for munitions,
viciousness and violence make us our true own worst enemies. The
good news is that this is a situation that could be easily remedied, if only
any politicians, including our President, would have the courage to take on the
NRA and our ingrained gun culture. This has nothing to do with our freedoms. No
one needs to own semi-automatic assault rifles. If you’re aghast and see my
notions as an unwarranted attack on the Constitution, then truly be a strict
Constitutionalist and own a musket if, and only if, you are in the military, as
the Second Amendment literally, clearly and solely allows.
Others have argued that individual gun ownership is imperative
as our preeminent protection from a treacherous and threatening central government.
If you judge the contents of your gun
locker to be sufficient security against federal tyranny you are genuinely and grievously
in error. Should the imagined incidence of the United States government unexpectedly
going rogue and commencing combat against its innocent citizens arise you would
no doubt find yourself spectacularly outgunned by the might of any one of our armed
forces. But fret not, for despite dire and desperate warnings from the likes of
Fox News, Michele Bachmann and the deleteriously disturbed contributors to
Sarah Palin’s Facebook page, despite the
attempted brainless-washing from the increasingly ignorant individuals in the
Tea-publican party, (interestingly, cautions not admonished prior to an
African-American occupying 1600) you are in no danger from our government - our
government of the people, by the people and for the people - the most
egalitarian and representative government in history. You are in precipitously more
peril from your inexperienced and indignant neighbor instinctively brandishing
his 9 millimeter because your dog defecated on his previously pristine
lawn. Our forefathers and founders were
wise and wily fellows (unfortunately much more so than most presently occupying
leadership roles) and created a unique, revolutionary and exceptional form of
government whose checks and balances guarantee that no such fearful and fully
fictional folly would ever foment.
Required in these United States is but the ballot and not the bullet to
remove a rapscallion from office. That is the true nature of American
Exceptionalism. This is an exceptional nation
not because we can own assault weapons and armor piercing bullets but because if we disagree with a person in power we
can peacefully remove them - no blood shed or revolution required. It's free speech, free assembly and free
expression that makes us an emancipated citizenry, that guarantees our
liberties and freedoms, it’s the First Amendment and not the Second that may
yet save us from the seemingly predestined fate that has befallen each earlier
empire throughout the annals of time.
Should you wish to dispute the use of the characterization of “empire” as
descriptive for this land of the free and home of the brave feel free to find
more fitting terminology for the planet’s sole military superpower with
soldiers stationed in over 150 sovereign nations.
The problems lie
not with the country itself, not with the rock-solid foundation and
underpinning of our potentially great nation, it’s not the Constitution or the
Declaration of Independence or the Bill of Rights at fault– it’s the
increasingly under-educated citizens, the increasingly corporate- controlled,
corrupt, bought and paid for politicians and it’s the religious institutions who
too often proselytize hatred, intolerance, fear and separatism rather than
love, acceptance, tolerance and togetherness.
But because the foundation is true and
strong our republic can survive and strive, ideals intact, but the keys are education, cultural
diversity, shared experiences, open-mindedness, empathy, compassion, and some
human kindness, but are we even capable of that anymore? It’s time we start
looking at ourselves through the prism of reality and facts and figures and not
through the arrogant rose-colored glasses of jingoism, and maybe then we can
avoid the aforementioned destiny that has destroyed all world empires before
us.
