I’m of the opinion that my country has lost its mind. But we’re capable of ignoring suffering all around us, why should it matter if that suffering is gun violence? We (as a country) fight to prevent people from getting free (or even just freely available) health care — the powers that be are so EVIL that they basically castrated Obama care out of the box and in some ways what we have now is worse than what we had before — not because the law was bad, but because those on the ‘other’ side decided that NO ONE who wasn’t rich and powerful should have easy access to affordable care…
So why should anyone care about 19 kids shot down before they have a chance to live if they CAN’T care about many thousands that DIE every year from lack of basic are? They didn’t care about the last shooting or the ones before that, or the people without PPE or basic health protocols, because our then ‘president’ had his head up his arse and did NOTHING while COVID burned through our country.
Many die from lack of care, from non-existent political will to do anything when there’s a health crisis (and they fight even the smallest efforts)… Meanwhile many, many more thousands are made broke and have their lives (yes even ‘middle class’ people with ‘health insurance’ included) destroyed… over ONE illness, be it COVID or something else… We’re a seriously SELFISH society.
We don’t care about our neighbor. We care about OUR instant gratification and nothing else. We think ‘love thy neighbor’ only means the same-coloured, same-class person who believes as we do and goes to our church… and sometimes, not even that.
Neighbor and even ‘same colour’ only truly applies if they’re white, well off and proclaim Christianity of the right kind…
It’s funny, but gun ownership by black folks is still an iffy thing… even legally and above board… and even in open carry states or where people have permits to carry, they’re more likely to be shot down as criminal… even when they’re lawfully going about their business. Ask Philando Castile’s family about that. Because you cannot ask HIM. The police murdered him.
Mostly we treat ‘love thy neighbor’ as something written for other people... yet we say ‘we’re a christian nation’ and demand that they ‘save the babies’ when the millions already here are screaming for help.
Scripture commands Christians to love thy neighbor and to love god. It doesn’t have anything about legislating the morality of anyone other than ourselves…yet the theocracy that is in danger of derailing democracy for good in America would have you believe that sexual ‘sin’ (homosexuality and fornication) and abortion matter more than caring for ‘the least of these’… our neighbors… funny, I don’t think they read the same bible i did. Probably partly because I actually read the entire thing. Context matters.
We of course, are the country who let a MILLION people die of COVID when the totals could have been MUCH lower if we had acted as though our neighbor was actually not just our neighbor, but a person whose life MATTERED.
Human lives matter. And yes, as a black woman, I do believe ‘black lives matter’ – because a lot of times we’re not included in that list of neighbors or humans at all. But right now, the sickness in our country is so much deeper than just race. We’re digging the country’s grave with SELFISHNESS.
Somewhere along the way we decided that the only thing that mattered was ‘me’. And occasionally ‘mine’ – as if those we love are possessions to guard instead of people to cherish. And in doing that… we’ve doomed even ourselves and our kids to live in a very dangerous country.
Nope, we’re not a Christian nation. We’re not even a decent secular nation. We’re a crying shame. How can we call ourselves ‘the greatest nation’ when we allow the desire for a penis substitute that we can aim and fire to trump life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Because we cannot have life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness in a land where people get shot up EVERY DAY simply for going to school, work or walking down the aisle of a grocery store… and most of us are traumatized and/or inured to the misery, and more and more of us are grieving the loss of someone – or several someones who didn’t need to die. There are shootings on a daily basis and mass shootings more than every other day… THAT makes us a very sick country.
I’m not even against gun ownership… but if you cannot have ANY restraint… cannot make even a basic attempt to prevent guns from falling into the hands of criminals and the mentally deranged and the radicalized… then there comes a day when it simply is not safe to walk down the road anywhere in America. This day is approaching fast.
Getting looser gun laws was never about freedom or even gun rights… it was ALWAYS AND ONLY about MONEY. About SELLING AS MANY GUNS AS POSSIBLE. A long time ago, the NRA was a gun safety organization. Yes, they actually were. They were barely political. Then they (and I cannot say when precisely) became a mouthpiece for the gun makers and sellers and a ready home for racists whose fearmongering drives gun sales (that part was easy b/c non-white was never part of who is considered the default human in America – and largely still is not)… The rhetoric became ‘freedom’ is only possible if the ‘right people’ ‘normal (white) people’ can have guns to protect ‘us’ from ‘the bad guys’.
Funny thing?
The bad guys suddenly found it EASY to buy guns by simply swinging round to a gun show, and loading up. Although many people in this country have NO guns, there are far more guns than people. That means there’s a lot of people with lots of guns…
Once upon a time, you had (at least) to walk into a local gun store… where maybe the owner recognized you were deranged and said ‘no gun for you…’ but now.. the new and more ‘free’ America… you simply can go to a gun show… and buy a gun… NOT from a dealer… anyone can sell… and anyone can buy (varies by jurisdiction). And of course we’ve the internet for anything truly frightening that you can (or maybe can’t yet) imagine.
That my dears, is how we’ve become wilder than the wild west. At least in those days, when kids got shot in shootouts, it was usually by accident. There were no guns then that could shoot 30 rounds without reloading. Heck, they were lucky if it shot 6.
But the ‘left’ is the bad guy because they want any controls on gun selling… Most US democrats are far right of the left as the Europeans would recognize the left. Most democrats simply don’t want every Tom, Dick and Terrorist to be able to buy a gun anytime, anywhere.
Even the basic restrictions at gun stores are so weak as to be laughable… but any logical criminal has dozens of ways of creating loopholes so they can get lots and lots of guns.
If your state is ‘unfriendly’ just drive an hour or two… and stock up.
Get your baby killing (and granny killing and black person killing) equipment right here… right at your local gun swap!
And yet the same people are ‘worried’ about ‘abortion’ stopping a beating heart. What about the abortion that is holding that gun? That vile specimen that is about to stop dozens of beating hearts for any number of irrational ‘reasons’ from race to ‘I just felt like killing people today’.
Why does his right to KILL trump the rights of people to have their children grow up?
Why is it that we care more about 6 week old cells that has a 20% chance of aborting itself, than we care about someone’s born, living child, teenager, mom, dad, grandpa, grandma? Why is it that people should have the right to kill as many BORN humans as they can, for no reason, but a woman with a brain dead baby is a ‘murderer’ for ending a dangerous pregnancy that never could have a happy ending?
We are a sick country. I’m fed up of it. I used to listen to NPR almost all day, every day – for over 35 years. Now I have stopped for my own sanity. I don’t have the energy to be outraged by every single event. I’m broken-hearted about all of them, but i cannot live any longer in that ever-deepening pool of blood we call news.
Sad and angry,
Blue
Note: this is a post taken from a discussion on another forum May 26, 2022. It is a reaction to the Shooting in Texas, the shooting in New York. the leak from the Supreme Court and the general climate of hypocrisy and darkness that is our public policy, particularly over the last 2 years. I believe we’re a country in crisis and we’re sliding rapidly into chaos and even greater violence. Edited for small corrections and clarity.
dbjgold 