"It is what it is," - Really?
Maybe the ball is in OUR court.
I’m struggling to wrap my head around how rapidly and dramatically things have deteriorated in our country - so much of it is because of an explosive growth of the “Us Against Them” mentality. All of us and those we love, are potential victims of this great and widening divide.
Could it be that fearing those we don’t know or understand - has become the new norm?
When did people become so terrified of strangers?
Up until recently, accidental acts such as knocking on the wrong door, going up the wrong driveway, or opening the wrong car door, were not considered to be capital offenses. People all around the country have been making such mistakes for years. So what has changed recently? The omnipresence of guns “at the ready” is certainly fueling this crisis but it’s more complex than that.
The growing fear and anger toward people outside our “tribe” is metastasizing like the worst of cancers. It is undermining all that has made America a beacon of hope to so many outside our borders. This growing problem didn’t just happen. It has been nourished by those who benefit from it, such as those trying to destroy our democracy -from across the street or across the globe. It’s also been bolstered by politicians who will say or do anything to energize their base, by autocrats, and those “news” networks that have prioritized profits over our nations survival - such as Fox News, recently exposed through hours of the Dominion court hearings.
The losers of this division are common folk like Ralph Yarl and Payton Washington who will never be the same psychologically or physically after being shot. And then there’s Kaylin Gillis, who will always be the same, but only in the memories of her family and loving friends. Each of these young people tragically made the news over the past week, but let’s not forget the thousand other people killed or injured by assaults in a typical week. We have an enormous problem with violence in our country, but we continue to elect politicians who merely dance around the associated issues.
Our society needs to come to grips with the reality that more and more people are responding to everyday angst with cruelty and brutality. These are deep seated and complex problems, the roots of which need to be exposed, before they can be addressed. In the meantime, we should be trying to minimize the destructiveness of their rage, not adding to it.
Legislation to require universal background checks before all gun purchases would be a no-brainer if it weren’t for huge gun industry profits. That legislation is supported by more than three fourths of Americans and would decrease access to guns for those who are more likely to use them irresponsibly. To what degree, we don’t know, but it would save some lives - and that should matter. Regardless of the support for this common sense measure, it is unlikely to happen for two reasons.
First, the NRA and conservative media have convinced most Republicans that the Democrats are their worst enemy and not to be trusted on anything, especially gun control. And they put their money where their mouth is - providing large amounts of funding for republican political campaigns.
Secondly, the lion’s share of those resisting sensible gun laws are decent people who vote republican - merely because they always have. Less than twenty percent of Americans consider themselves to be seriously interested in politics. So we have roughly 80 percent of us uninterested in doing our homework to stay informed regarding what our votes support. If we get all of our news from the same limited sources that we always have, we will believe that “we already know who our enemies are” . . . . . no need to sift through positions on different topics or the ACTUAL VOTING RECORDS OF EACH CANDIDATE. Click this link to see your reps voting record - it can be enlightening)
Only through naivety, can candidates continue to win over voters that act against their own self-interests. Supporting candidates who value unlimited gun access over the lives of our youth is amoral, and hypocritical. Do we really think that an overwhelming majority of “Right to Life Republicans” believe that unlimited access to guns is more important than life itself, or could it be that they’re just trying to overcome a political party they’ve been told was their enemy?
None of us knows what was going through the minds of the three aggressors, five minutes before they pulled their triggers on three young people. My hunch is that not one of them was reminiscing about a nice conversation they’d recently had with a stranger. I don’t think it had anything to do with a surprisingly pleasant encounter they’d had with someone different than themselves.
Explain one thing to me. We, I hope, can all agree that Lori Lightfoot, the almost former mayor of ChicAgo, was a horrible mayor right? Enough people thought she did a lousy job that she didn’t make it into the anticipated run off. Glimmer of hope that the pro police, law and order person would get elected and attempt to straighten things out in that city that is falling apart. Explain how the democrats in Chicago (because there are not enough republicans to make any sort of dent in that machine) have now elected a man who has even more extreme views than she did, anti police, & pro teacher even with the lousy stats on what the Chicago schools are producing. You say that the gop has a problem, but I say that “problem” goes both ways. I want a lot of the old timers on both sides of the aisle to retire, old school doesn’t really cut it anymore, but we must stay focused on the Constitution which is what keeps us the greatest nation on the face of the earth. Las and order must prevail, and we need to stop making “government” the answer to every freaking thing.