"African Americans are, by and large, not voluntary immigrants. They are a stolen people, cut off from their history. They have been denied the opportunity to assimilate and gain upward mobility, persecuted from slavery through Redemption and Jim Crow, and without recourse to the glittering dream of a Zion past or present, they remain captive in mind and body to a country whose institutions despise or ignore them."
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/03/womens-march/555122/
Thursday, March 8, 2018
Wednesday, August 16, 2017
One Step Closer to the Edge...
 |
| Nazi Math |
“Pride should be reserved for something you achieve or
obtain on your own, not something that happens by accident of birth. Being
Irish isn't a skill... it's a fucking genetic accident. You wouldn't say I'm
proud to be 5'11"; I'm proud to have a pre-disposition for colon cancer.”
–George Carlin
I begin with this quote from the late great Carlin because
it’s a calm, measured introduction for what I’m about to say. Carlin famously
never understood national pride; this segment of his stand up shows how foolish
and irrational it is to have pride in one’s ethnicity or country of origin –
pride should be an emotion linked to achievements – not things that are simple
truths about oneself. If you were born in America, Carlin suggests, it
shouldn’t be pride you feel about
your nation. The descriptor you’re looking for is happy, or glad at the
circumstances of your citizenship. Unless you were once the citizen of a
different country, who became a citizen of the USA. That’s something you worked
towards, you studied and jumped through hoops and passed a test then achieved
American citizenship – that accomplishment is worthy of pride. You can be proud
to serve your country in the Armed
Forces – completing bootcamp and surviving combat are honorable accomplishments.
But to claim you’re proud of being white, as if “white” in and of itself is a
heritage – is fucking senseless, and as I’ll explain: cowardly and dangerous.
Let me digress before I start foaming at the mouth. I, as a
Caucasian American-born woman, have enjoyed many freedoms not granted to a
Chinese woman of the same generation, or a Russian woman, or an Egyptian woman,
and millions of other women who live under oppressive regimes. For this, I am
grateful. Sadly – because of an accident of my birth, I also enjoy freedoms not shared by fellow American women who
are of a different race, and I don’t
share certain privileges enjoyed by my white-male American counterparts. I
fully admit and acknowledge that the nation of my birth, my parents’ birth,
their parents’ birth – and of many of my ancestors dating back until the late
1800s – is an imperfect and unequal one. Because of many blunders made by our
Founding Fathers and those that followed them in government, our nation suffers
from an ugly division that has historically favored white, well-to-do males in all
things, at the expense of all others – namely the natives we forced to near
extinction on their own continent, and the lives we enslaved from the African
continent to grow our crops and perform the hardest of labors. The Britons and
the Spaniards may have brought slavery and started a genocide on our
hemisphere, but Americans allowed those evils to flourish. The Revolutionaries
declared independence from an empire, proclaiming “life, liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness” for all, but hypocritically only meant it about white dudes.
After the success of the Revolutionary War, we initially welcomed immigrants to
our shores, with a specific caveat – you had to be white.
“The original United States Naturalization Law of March 26,
1790 (1 Stat. 103) provided the first rules to be followed by the United States
in the granting of national citizenship. This law limited naturalization to
immigrants who were free white persons of good character. It thus excluded
American Indians, indentured servants, slaves, free blacks and later Asians
although free blacks were allowed citizenship at the state level in certain
states. It also provided for citizenship for the children of U.S. citizens born
abroad, stating that such children "shall be considered as natural born
citizens," the only US statute ever to use the term."[i]
So: things have been imbalanced from the start. As we
reached the economic challenge of industrialization in the mid- 1800s, the
government sought to stop the spread of slavery to new states. Slavery - in
addition to being inhumane and evil - is also a financially backward practice.
The Civil War broke out so that Southern plantation owners could retain their
wealth and political influence which was rooted in the value of the slaves they
owned. They convinced their impoverished, white cohorts to fight for their cause by
exploiting racial and xenophobic tensions – “if the slaves are freed, they’ll
rape your women, steal your livelihoods, kill you just for being white.” The
rubes back then were too uneducated and miserable to see that the people actually exploiting them were the
plantation oligarchs themselves; that by exploiting the unpaid labor of slaves
they were avoiding having to pay people of any
race to do the work – thus keeping the profits at the top, and the rest of the
farmers and tradesmen arguing over the scraps at the bottom.
The South failed to secede and the Union was preserved and
slavery abolished. We know what followed – Jim Crow and the KKK and the
legislative adherence to racial subjugation of people of color, the systemic
use of terror to keep black people and brown people and yellow and red people in
their place at the bottom of the pecking order. Women regardless of color
didn’t get to vote until 1920. Other minorities (LGBTQ) are still fighting for
protections in the workplace and in society at large just for being who they
are. Post Civil-Rights era, things started to look better for non-white dudes on paper: but as we see today, despite
the leaps and bounds we’ve made as a nation over two centuries, we’re still
working on guaranteeing access to the American Dream – “life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness” to all of its
citizens, and all those who seek to become Americans. These past sins are and should be a source of shame –
but no one living today owned a slave (sexual slavery is still alive and well
but that’s a criminal offense and a rant for a different day), nor fought for
the South in the Civil War – we should simply accept the ugliness of our
history, and leave the ugliness there – in the past. Modern Germany has done
this exceedingly well in the way they treat their past. Most German people
alive today are descended from Nazis or Nazi sympathizers – but the evil has been
acknowledged, Neo-Nazis are denied their hate speech in public space, it is a
crime to even draw a swastika, and relics of the Third Reich are relegated to
museums, while Holocaust memorials are prominent. The past has been condemned in Germany – but it is far
from forgotten.
It is not so here in America. During the decades before WW2,
white Southerners worked tirelessly to erect statues and pay homage to their
grandfathers and relatives who fought for the Confederacy; still crushed by the
loss, they sniveled about a war of “Northern aggression,” completely ignoring
the fact that their grandfathers died for a cause that would never have
benefitted them, and would have oppressed millions of people because of an
accident of their birth. The display of the Confederate flag and the worship of
Robert E. Lee and other generals are not
a celebration of heritage – they are a celebration of white privilege, a boot
on the neck of the descendants of slaves. We should have stomped out these
displays long ago, but racists and bigots hide behind the First Amendment –raising
a banner of hatred they label “history,” and this pathetic worship of an army
of TREASONOUS ANTI-AMERICANS who sought to prolong SLAVERY has continued into
the modern era. This is a black mark on the American soul, and it sickens me. This
Alt-right protest of the removal of the statue of Robert E. Lee has nothing to
do with the erasure of their beloved “heritage:” it has everything to do with
the fact that by condemning the sins of their fathers, we as a nation are
threatening their perceived position at the top of the pecking order as white
Americans – and they will stop at nothing to preserve their supposed
superiority over the rest of us.
I am not ashamed to be American. I cannot help where I was
born, or the culture I grew up in. I can only accept accountability for the
ways in which my adult life can shape the America of the future for my son. The
America I hope to see, and am working towards with every ballot I cast and
interaction I engage in, is one where education is affordable and accessible to
all, where economic inequality is minimal and a non-factor in the quality of a
person’s life (because all people should have excellent healthcare without the
catastrophic costs of insurance or services, the ability to have a job that
will pay for basic necessities in addition to living costs), where the color of
your skin or your gender or the gender of the person whom you love is
irrelevant when you walk down the street, drive your car, or apply for a job. I
want an America where all ethnic backgrounds and religions are considered
legitimate and belonging to one isn’t favored over another at any time for any
reason, where we can be different as individuals but the same in the level of
respect we show one another and receive from government officials and police.
It’s an idyllic concept, and it will likely never come to pass – but that is
what I would like to happen. It is
possible to achieve this, but until we address our pernicious social and
cultural wounds, it will remain only
a dream.
Confusion about national pride, in the way George Carlin
addressed above, is one of the many contributing factors to the festering mess
of a nation we live in today. As marginalized people fight to be recognized and
treated as human beings under the black cloud of the Trump Administration, the
cancer of white nationalism has come out of remission with no signs of
stopping. Most recently, an epic fuck up at a hate-rally resulted in one woman’s
death and the death of two police officers this past weekend in
Charlottesville, VA. The woman was an anti-white nationalist protester who was
mowed down by a member of the Vanguard America, a white nationalist hate group,
and the police officers died in a helicopter crash en route to respond to
rising tensions between the Alt-right rally and the counter-protesters who
turned up to drown them out. All three deaths were entirely avoidable; I will
leave it up to the authorities to investigate and prosecute those responsible.
The blood is ultimately on the hands of the white supremacists that have
crawled out of the dirt they previously occupied before the election of Donald
Trump, emboldened by their chosen leader’s ambivalence to their racially and
ethnically motivated hatred of the ‘other.’ BUT THAT’S NOT EVEN THE END OF IT.
DAYS later, DAYS! Trump finally
condemned the KKK and white nationalists, but fucking back-tracked his statement, doubling down on his initial insistence that
“the alt-left is as much to blame for the violence (in Virginia) as the
alt-right.” Stew on that for a while. I’ll get back to that.
We find ourselves in a familiar situation now as the decade preceding
WW2 in the USA.[ii]
In the 1930s, during the grip of the Great Depression, fascism was quite
popular among white Americans. Capitalism and democracy had failed the majority
of lower class Americans, but the most prevalent contemporary alternative, communism,
was widely despised. All forms of socialism were painted with an evil brush in
this era, which is why fascism seemed to be working well in Germany under
Hitler –we know now that the economic recovery under his regime was
exploitative and exaggerated, but at the time, it appealed to many impoverished
white Americans. In 2017, the money is yet again concentrated up at the top in
the offshore accounts of the ultra-rich 1%, and most other people are
struggling to make ends meet, especially people of color, but also blue-collar
whites, whose manufacturing jobs have disappeared due to automation, government
failure to enforce anti-trust laws, and good old fashioned corporate greed.
But an ailing economy alone doesn’t explain the rise of
white nationalism/supremacy/fascism in modern America, even though it is a
large part of it. Sociologist Mitch Berbrier wrote a paper studying the beliefs
of the growing white nationalist movement back in 2000[iii],
and found that the movement could generally be boiled down to 5 core beliefs: (1)
that whites are victims of discrimination (2) that their rights are being
abrogated (3) that they are stigmatized if they express "pride” (4) that
they are being psychologically affected through the loss of self-esteem (5)
that the end product of all of this is the elimination of "the white
race." These are sociocultural concepts, and I will address and refute
them all, and not necessarily in the most professional or dispassionate of
words, by each bullet point. Disclaimer: FACTS REFUTE THESE KINDS OF
MISCONCEPTIONS, WHICH IS WHY TRUMP-SUPPORTERS HAVE LITTLE TO NO USE FOR FACTS,
AND WHY YOU WILL SEE SO MUCH OVERLAP BETWEEN THE ALT-RIGHT (READ: NEO-FASCIST
OR NEO-NAZI) AND THE TRUMP SUPPORT BASE.
BULLSHIT WHITE SUPREMACIST BELIEF #1: “whites are victims of
discrimination”
·
NOPE. Ignorant white people like to think that
“reverse racism” is real, and that affirmative action keeps deserving whites
from getting into college or landing jobs, but that’s not supported by FACTS. In
truth, the college admissions system is horribly flawed, and despite the
incorporation of affirmative action in the process, it still wildly favors rich
white students: “legacy” admissions and donation admissions almost exclusively
benefit whites. See: George W. Bush and Donald J. Trump – mediocre students at
best, but are graduates of Yale and Wharton because of who their daddies were.
Elite universities AND public ones want students who will graduate and go off
to become wealthy alumni to drive their donations (READ: CHILDREN OF THE 1% and
STUDENT ATHLETES TO HELP FUND THE COLLEGE SPORTS INDUSTRY REGARDLESS OF RACE),
and until we start funding higher education differently, the admissions system
will remain unfair for students of all colors and socioeconomic backgrounds. Corporate
hiring still wildly favors white employees, even corporations who claim to be
for diversity (lookin at you, denizens of Silicon Valley), because white people
are more likely to have bachelor’s degrees and are more amenable to accept
unpaid internships and part time work because their parents are more likely to
have the means to support them as they get established in a career. I’m not
suggesting that white people are at all smarter or more driven than people of
color – I’m saying that financially they tend to be better off because of the
way wealth is concentrated in home ownership, even though millions of white
people suffer below the poverty line. Don’t even get me started on how white
people benefit from their whiteness in everyday life – cops don’t harass them
with as much frequency as POC (people of color – I will from now on use this
acronym to refer to Black, Latino, people of Middle Eastern descent, Asians –
basically anyone who isn’t Caucasian) and whites aren’t prosecuted with the
severity of POC when charged with crimes, if they were charged at all. The
whole justice system is discriminatory against POC. It’s been proven that
whites commit crimes at the same rates as other racial groups, but up to 70% of
people occupying our prisons are black or brown people, when they only make up
not even 50% of the national population. The idea that white people are being
discriminated against by private business or higher education or in the justice
system is nonsense, plain and simple.
BULLSHIT WHITE SUPREMACIST BELIEF #2: “whites’ rights are
being abrogated”
·
Abrogated means “eroded or rolled back,” FYI.
Let me be as clear as I possibly can: JUST BECAUSE SOMEONE ELSE HAS THE SAME
ABILITY FROM A LEGAL STANDPOINT TO DO SOMETHING THAT UNTIL RECENTLY ONLY WHITE
GUYS HAD THE EXCLUSIVE PRIVILIGE OF ENJOYING, DOES NOT MEAN THEIR RIGHTS ARE
BEING TAKEN AWAY. Because POC citizens are allowed to vote does not change the
fact that WHITE MEN HAVE ALWAYS HAD THE RIGHT TO VOTE! Guaranteeing a POC
access to institutions and titles and positions that were previously only held
by white men DOES NOT TAKE AWAY THEIR ACCESS TO THEM. This argument is mostly a
sniveling complaint about having to compete with non-whites for things, when in
bygone eras you could be average and mediocre and still get a decent job and
make good money. NOT ONCE HAS A WHITE MAN’S CIVIL RIGHTS BEEN THREATENED IN A
WAY THAT RELATED TO THE COLOR OF HIS SKIN. White women – and all women – are
threatened daily these days with restrictions to reproductive rights;
restrictions which are being put in place by WHITE MEN in Congress. All members
of the LGBTQ community are threatened by the legislative evil of the same group
of WHITE MEN. So yes – some white’s rights ARE being abrogated – AT THE HANDS
OF WHITE MEN.
BULLSHIT WHITE SUPREMACIST BELIEF #3: “whites are
stigmatized if they express "pride”’
·
This is where Carlin’s argument comes in. Let’s
be real: mainstream culture is driven by white people. We are overrepresented
on film, in print (both fiction and non-fiction), in the media – it’s a sea of
white faces with some black, brown, and Asian ones mixed in. Because Americans
stripped African slaves of their heritage and culture during the 17th-18th
centuries, their descendants have had to forge their own amalgamated experience
as black people. It’s truly unique and horrific when you stop to think of it. African
Americans have contributed to our culture and enriched it, but very few can say
which part of Africa their great great great great great grandfather was stolen
from or what their cultural customs and religious beliefs were. As a white
person, I know my ancestors came from Italy, Germany, Ireland, Sweden – and I
know how these ethnic groups influenced American customs – because those histories weren’t purposefully erased. Minority
groups are stigmatized and routinely overlooked in the arts, so when they
create magazines or TV networks that cater to them, it’s not racism at work. Racism is why they needed to create these
platforms to begin with. It’s fine to enjoy the cultural customs of your
ethnic ancestors: we have so many ethnically Irish people in America we
celebrate St. Patrick’s Day as a nation. It’s a giant consumerist money trap –
don’t deny it. Even if you aren’t Irish at all you’ve probably put in a green
shirt and got drunk at a parade. You all know a guy who is Greek or Italian or
some other ethnic group who is very proud of this fact. There are countless
comedies that joke about this; it’s generally not malicious or carried out with
ill intent. It’s mostly about cuisine and festivals and things that are
centered in LOVE. But very many people in this country are descended from the
ethnically British people who fought in the American Revolution, or their
German/Swedish/Irish family came over to America so long ago they have no close
connection to their European roots. They are just ‘white,’ culturally that has
its own connotations if you grew up in the former Confederacy or the
mid/southwest. The trouble is that there’s nothing indicative of whiteness that
deserves celebration. That is neither good nor bad. It just is. Like Carlin said: celebrating your
ethnicity is as illogical as celebrating a predisposition for a kind of
illness. Communities tend to celebrate people who excel at certain things –
this guy is a great athlete, that girl is a great artist, that kid is a math
phenom, that mom can really sing, etc. At the national level, we like talented
people – look no further than the 9284876234 dance/voice/cupcake baking
competitions on television. People on
Youtube don’t even need to be particularly talented to become famous and make
money off of their feeds – they just need a clever gimmick. This leaves a lot
of average people out there yearning for a way to differentiate themselves, to
be special. It’s just the way society works, unfortunately. You want to be
seen, heard, fulfilled by something that sets you apart. PEOPLE WHO LOOK TO
THEIR WHITE AMERICAN ROOTS AND EXCLUSIVELY FIND FULFILLMENT IN THEIR ETHNIC
BACKGROUND ARE PEOPLE WHO LACK ACCOMPLISHMENTS OR ACCOLADES IN OTHER ASPECTS OF
LIFE. It is ok to display with pride aspects of one’s heritage and to identify
as “Irish” or “Thai” or “Colombian,” and if you move abroad and live as an
expat American in a foreign land, it should be acceptable for you to celebrate
4th of July and eat hot dogs and apple pie and play baseball. It is
NOT okay to claim that because you are of an ethnic background, this entitles
you to more or makes you better than other ethnic groups. Being white does NOT
make you superior in anyway, so being proud of being white to the point where
you have to go out of your way to announce it in a nation that already caters to people who look and live
very much like you is somewhat ridiculous. Your worth as a person is not
tied to your skin color – it is in the things you do and say, in the ways you
contribute to society. You may be economically frustrated and perhaps shunned
by your community for social awkwardness or for being a fan of something
not-mainstream – but don’t look to your whiteness as an answer to your
alienation. We need to work harder as a society to stop alienating young people
for being different and we need to stop glorifying people who excel at certain
things and not others. If we embrace inclusion and shame people for bullying
introverts and the less outgoing, we can reduce the number of white men who
turn to white nationalism as a kind of support group to build up their esteem.
If all races and ethnicities and religions are fairly represented in
entertainment and in government and in corporate and small business, the desire
for racially/ethnically specific media will decrease. Until then, it will be
necessary for POC to create venues to showcase their American experience – and white people shouldn’t be offended
by that, since mainstream networks and literature and film already heavily
feature white people. George Carlin also famously said – “you can actually
change the station! It's called freedom of choice!”
BULLSHIT WHITE SUPREMACIST BELIEF #4: “whites are being
psychologically affected through the loss of self-esteem
·
This is tied to my above rant, so let me
reiterate: just because you are alienated and disaffected and have no self-esteem
because of any number of reasons linked to your employment or the failure to
live up to the American Dream or your expectations of how your life should have
gone, it does not excuse the scapegoating
of [insert ethnicity/religion/race] people. Stan Lee, of Marvel Comics
fame, had this to say way back in 1968, and he expresses my opinion perfectly:
·
There is not a finite amount of personal
fulfillment on the planet. All people are disappointed by something in their
lives at some point, or suffer setbacks, or are unhappy by the way something
turned out. That doesn’t make you special.
Most of us are dealt shitty hands – we must cope with it, rise above it. Life
and culture are always evolving, and sometimes change is painful and not in our
best interest. You should work towards making the systems that govern us more
fair and less prone to bribery and manipulation so that all people can benefit
and have a fair chance at happiness – assembling on a lawn with torches
screaming about how other races are plotting against you is not productive. If
you really believe that, the response should be rewriting the system so that a
characteristic of birth cannot be a factor in the way resources are allocated.
White nationalists seek to dominate in a world that will favor their own race
in perpetuity because historically that has been the case in practice, if not
on the books (and as I pointed out – racist laws have been on the books since
at least 1790). And because they don’t always get traction the lawful way, they
terrify and threaten the safety of the people who oppose them – which is the
same tactic employed by ISIS and every other terrorist group. Anguish suffered
by whites is not in any way caused by
the equal treatment of POC. Anguish is individual, caused by strife and mental
illness and adversity and social and relational imbalance. It cannot be blamed
solely on a group of marginalized people. Blame instead the ravenous economic
paradigm, the political climate that stigmatizes mental illness and rewards
bullying and selfishness – and then work through peaceful legitimate means to change these injustices.
BULLSHIT WHITE SUPREMACIST BELIEF #5: “the end product of
all of the other reasons is the elimination of "the white race."’
·
Consequences—even imaginary ones—are necessary
to paint oneself as a victim. The sociological theory of "the dramatization
of injury and innocence” asserts the (false) notion that you’re just a
blameless bystander and your attackers are everywhere, and they wish you harm.
Once you’ve bought into all this other bullshit – that the great white race is
under attack from foreign or colored invaders and your identity and culture as
a white person is in danger – it’s not too far a leap to the violent,
dehumanizing realm that the Alt-Right occupies. For these white dudes, they are
soldiers in a race war, and the enemy is colored Americans who are out to erase
their historical and cultural contributions to humanity. In reality, MINORITIES
DON’T WANT TO ERASE WHITES – THEY WANT TO BE FINALLY TREATED WITH THE RESPECT
AND FAIRNESS WHITES ENJOY FROM THE JUSTICE SYSTEM AND IN SOCIETY AT LARGE. Black
Lives Matter, a movement created in response to the careless violence inflicted
by law enforcement against black people, is NOT a hate group. There have been
several tragic incidents resulting in the deaths of police officers and
innocent protesters at BLM events – but their stance is not one of hate. They simply want to be treated as HUMAN FUCKING
BEINGS by the agents of the state that are supposed to protect and serve the
public. White nationalists, white supremacists, fascists, the Alt-right – from
now on I’m just referring to them as NAZIS because that is essentially their
shared ideology – their stance is one of hatred and violence. They are already
respected as human beings by law enforcement and the government – look no further
than Charlottesville for fucking proof. There were white para-military assholes
patrolling and protecting the Nazis protesting the removal of that statue – at
one point during the march on Saturday they were even pushing up
against the riot line – physically resisting the police! DID ANY OF THESE NAZIS
GET SHOT OR ROUGHED UP BY THE POLICE FOR THEIR INSOLENCE!?!?!? No. None of them
did. Heather Heyer was run over by a car for standing against fascism, though.
19 other people were injured in the same incident that should have been stopped
before it even started because the police were afraid of infringing of First
Amendment Rights. That is what we call white privilege – plain and simple.
Black people cannot protest their inhumane treatment in a peaceful manner with
a guarantee they will walk away alive – where is the concern about protecting
THEIR FUCKING FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS?
Now that you understand why and how we have arrived at this
crossroad, I will say with full and complete confidence: there is a line in
the fucking sand. On my side are those who fully reject fascism, Nazism, white
nationalism, white supremacy, violence in the name of heritage, violence
against a group of people simply because of the skin color or their religion or
ethnicity, hatred based on bigotry and ignorance and ‘alternative facts.’ On
the other side are the Nazis and all who are too cowardly to condemn them, too
craven to denounce hate, too wishy washy to take a stand at all about anything.
DONALD FUCKING TRUMP IS ON THIS SIDE. It doesn’t matter now what your stance is
on economic policy, or foreign diplomacy, or the role of government in private
matters. EITHER YOU ARE OPPOSED TO THEIR HATEFUL IDEOLOGY AND EVERYTHING THEY
STAND FOR OR YOU ARE COMPLICIT IN THEIR VIOLENCE. There is no middle ground.
There is no middle ground. There is no middle ground. If you are not actively,
with every opportunity, DENOUNCING Nazism and ignorant-ass white supremacist
comments, you are enabling this to continue. Your default fucking position
should be anti-fascist, pro-democracy, pro-equality. If it is not – if you
continue to defend Trump and his Nazi apologist cronies – YOU ARE THE FUCKING
PROBLEM.
WHITE SUPREMACISTS ARE DOMESTIC TERRORISTS WHO USE THE SAME
TACTICS AS ISLAMIC FUNDEMENTALISTS TO ACHIEVE THEIR GOALS. Would you support a
pro-ISIS rally on a college campus near you? All those in attendance are
American born citizens; would you seek to protect their First Amendment rights
as they spouted hatred? I bet you wouldn’t. I bet you would fully support their
violent smack down, labeling the rally a terrorist assemblage, mass arrests and
likely mass casualties. If you are
anti-Muslim terrorism you should feel the exact same fucking way about white
domestic terrorists! In fact, white male Christians have carried out more gun
massacres in this country than Muslim male terrorists. We always hear more
about the Muslim shooters, because since 9/11 we have been conditioned to hate
Muslims – but you are far more likely to die at the hands of a disgruntled
white dude than a fundamentalist Muslim one. Radicalized hatred is wrong and
should be stamped out no matter what the ideology – whether it uses an imagined
heritage or a prophet to justify it’s existence. We should be treating these
fuckers with the same disdain and paranoia we reserve for Islamic terrorist
groups – they should be put on watch lists and prevented from obtaining
firearms because their ideology is centered in bigotry and violence. The First
Amendment allows for peaceful assemblage and does not protect hate speech –
they only have hateful assemblages
and hate speech.
Heather Heyer is an American patriot and a martyr for the
causes of justice and freedom. The KKK found glee in her murder, their leader
said he was glad she died, and Trump was praised for his refusal to
condemn the movement with conviction. "Thank you President Trump for your
honesty & courage to tell the truth about #Charlottesville & condemn
the leftist terrorists in BLM/Antifa," David Duke (KKK leader) wrote,
referring to Black Lives Matter and the anti-fascist movement.
Anti-fascists could
not and would not exist if fascism
wasn’t still a fucking problem in our society. Trump wants to paint the
counter-protesters, who showed up with bats and pepper spray to defend themselves
because the Alt-Right is known to lash out physically against those who oppose
them – as the true villains, equal in the blame. Both sides used violence that
day, yes – BUT ONLY ONE OF THOSE FUCKING SIDES HAD NAZIS ON IT. There is no
centrist position on this. There is no equivalency between antifa and the white
supremacists organizations. NONE. If you think there is, you’ve sided with the
Nazis, and I cannot respect your cowardice.
So either you come out against Trump, against the KKK,
against fascism and Nazism – or else you are supporting it with your pathetic
ambivalence. Don’t bury your head in the sand. You don’t need to go out into
the street screaming “fuck Trump” – but you need to denounce all that he and
the Nazis stand for whenever the occasion arises. You need to choose democracy,
choose the true American ideal of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”
for ALL. Be angry, and take action, otherwise you’re going to wind up in a mass
grave dug by the Nazis – or you’ll by digging those graves yourself.
[i] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalization_Act_of_1790
Thursday, May 25, 2017
Blessed are the corporations, as per MN Rep. Whelan
Before I devolve into a fit of barking lunacy at the sheer
entitlement and unethicality of the subject of this post, I’ll say this: I just
happened to come across this article today, and after I read it and
subsequently watched the video to make sure it wasn’t fictitious or over-exaggerated,
I went blank inside. It’s been a fairly boring, normal day (if you could call
life under the Trump Regime ‘normal’), and I wasn’t already in a bad mood or
anything.
Until I fully processed what I had heard. Then rage came roaring
back in. Let me sum up. As reported by several agnostic/atheistic news sites,
including Patheos (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2017/05/25/asked-about-offshore-tax-havens-mn-state-rep-tells-everyone-to-accept-jesus/),
Representative Abigail Whelan, a member of Minnasota’s House of Reps,
completely avoided a direct question from a Democratic colleague regarding her
refusal to support an omnibus tax bill that would help close up loop holes for corporations
using off-shore accounts as tax havens by saying this instead (italics utilized
for my emphasis):
“…It might be because it’s late and I’m really tired, but I’m going
to take this opportunity to just share with the body something I have been
grappling with over the past several months, and that is, the games that we play here. And I just want you to know, Representative Thissen and the [Democratic]
caucus – I forgive you. It is okay,
because I have an eternal perspective about this. I have an eternal
perspective and I want to share that with you and with the people listening at
home, that at the end of the day, when we
try to reach an agreement with divided government, we win some, we lose some,
nobody is really happy, but you know what? Happiness and circumstances – not
what it’s about. There is actual joy to be found in Jesus Christ. Jesus
loves you all. If you would like to get to know him, [if] you’re listening at
home, [or] here in this room, please email me, call me. Would love to talk to you about Jesus. He is the hope of this state and
of this country.”
To Whelan, and all other sanctimonious “Christian” hypocrites
gleefully working to devolve America into a real life dystopia inspired by The
Handmaid’s Tale: fuck you. Fuck your cowardly tactic of hiding behind Jesus
whenever someone calls you out on your bullshit. Fuck your smug delusional insistence
that if only we all had more of (your interpretation of)Jesus in our lives, the
country wouldn’t be the circling the drain as it is now.
This is the cold, hard truth: YOU are the fucking problem. White,
Christian, entitled shitbags like you. Your sociopathic ideals about everyone
being able to and responsible for pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps
has been rendered nearly impossible by the very things you have weaseled into
national legislation: you treat corporations with more respect than individual
humans, you funnel money away from the people scrounging for scraps to the people
who already have fucktons of cash using the proven lie that is trickledown economic
theory as justification so that the oligarchs that have bought and paid for
your election can remain in their high towers and you can rest easy knowing you
won’t have to panic about finding a steady job unlike the peasants you were
elected to represent.
You and all your brethren are a plague on the civilized world. You
pervert the Constitution and the gospel of your so-called god with every word
you utter and abusive law you ram through the system. You disgust me. I’d spit
on you if I could get within a few feet of you.
It’s the same tired tactic that has become common place in Trump’s
America – “I can’t answer this important question without incriminating or
outing myself as an asshole, so I’ll ignore the question entirely and say
something about Jesus/Benghazi/Obama.” This tactic existed long before modern
politicians incorporated it into the core of their very being, yes, but it’s
become especially pernicious and I am sick to death of it. I remain frustrated
to the brink of madness with idiot-America’s incapability/refusal to recognize
these wolves in sheep’s clothing for what they are – lying frauds. If you are a
white Christian person who makes less than 125K a year, they don’t give a
flying fuck about your wellbeing. They care that you’re indifferent and
ignorant enough to fall for their bullshit and will say whatever it takes to
convince you they aren’t stabbing you in the back after you cast a vote for them– whether it’s anti-Muslim/anti-immigrant
rhetoric or anti-abortion propaganda or whatever stirs up your nostalgia for
the “good ol’ days” when women were barefoot and pregnant and people of color
kept their head down and their mouths shut.
We all have a blindspot of naivety about something, but the math
just doesn’t fucking add up with these people. The less corporations pay in
taxes, the more you the taxpayer have to
pay to make up the difference. You want a country with paved roads, non-crumbling
bridges/tunnels, well-funded police departments, safe schools for your kids
with good programs that prepare them for the job market and college? THESE
THINGS ARE ALL FUNDED BY FUCKING TAXES. If the brunt of the taxes are coming
from individuals and families, that equals less money left in the pot to
consume with. With less money to spend, businesses suffer, and have to lay
people off to keep the doors open – which creates more dependence on the state
(which is already improperly funded because corporations refuse to pay their
fair share and the working class is strained because they contribute more than
they can afford), and when the state tells the down-on-their-luck to fuck off
and “pull themselves up by their bootstraps” (like in Maine where the
scumbag Governor LePage has gutted safety net programs and poverty has
intensified and homelessness has increased) you wind up with a wicked homeless
problem, which breeds crime because people have to steal/deal drugs to survive –
you see where this is going? You want a country with ample things to buy at the
grocery store and lots of reasonably-priced choices about the kinds of consumer
goods you can get your hands on, without the taint of knowing it was all
provided by cheap sweat shop/illegal immigrant labor? MAKE THE FUCKING UBER
RICH CORPORATIONS PAY MORE IN TAXES. Tie CEO pay to lowest-paid worker pay so
the money that would be going in their pocket goes back into the company, which
can be passed along in taxes, so people can have more money in their paychecks
so they can in turn use their surplus cash to SPEND AND GROW THE FUCKING
ECONOMY.
This strain of selfish assholery, where we are offended that our
tax dollars are used to help people who are disabled, or going hungry, or are
homeless because they have a mental illness and can’t hold down a job is
UN-CHRISTIAN – plain and simple. Jesus preached constantly about charity and
living humbly and helping those in need – it was his whole shtick! He also said
“give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s!” – i.e. give the government what you owe!
This notion that people who accept government assistance are by default moochers
or lazy jerks is largely fictitious. Sure, people abuse the system, and
parameters should be in place to prevent this from happening. But the response to
occasional misuse should not result in the elimination government safety net
programs entirely. The movement towards this – gutting food stamps and housing assistance
and healthcare for the poor – is immoral and unethical.
A person who actually had
a backbone and moral fiber wouldn’t be dodging legitimate inquiries about
fiscal policy with responses about their love for Jesus. Abigail Whelan gives
Christians a bad name; she is a shining example of everything that atheists and
agnostics loathe about deeply religious political figures. This is why the
Founding Father’s established separation of Church and State when they broke
from England – to avoid tyranny masquerading as religious rhetoric.
All I know is – when the government crumbles in on itself, the
result of a coup from the militant Christian fundamentalists – I won’t really
be surprised. I’ll also be shaking my head, watching the carnage from either the
grave or Canada – because I refuse to relinquish my autonomy and my rights as a
human being.
*kicks over soap box*
Wednesday, July 20, 2016
Yeah - Melania is a joke, but there's something more sinister afoot here....
So….yes, this whole Melania-stole-from-Michelle’s-DNC-speech
thing has been wildly entertaining because the memes that have resulted are
side-splittingly comedic. There’s no denying that. But in all seriousness – I don’t
think the infraction is quite as insulting as Trump’s detractors have made it
out to be. To be clear – Trump and anyone willingly in a relationship with him
(romantic or professional) is a mouth-breathing, sycophantic gold digger;
deserving no respect. But let’s face facts: 99% of politicians and key note speakers
at giant public events like conventions are guilty of plagiarism at some point.
There’s only so many ways you can rearrange the order of words for a common
idea that is often being conveyed at these things. The big reveal here isn’t
that Melania Trump is an unoriginal speech thief. Anyone who has seen Melania
Trump and heard her speak in everyday life will realize that she is a vapid,
opportunistic Barbie doll who married Trump for his money and cashed in big
time on her physical appeal. She’s a blank slate, (an ambitious one, sure) but there’s
nothing much going on up stairs.
The true reveal of this debacle is that Trump can’t even
hire speech writers competent enough to know that 22 out of 26 words in a part
of that speech are IDENTICAL to the Michelle Obama speech. I don’t believe for
a second that Melania had any credible role in writing the speech she gave –
she likely met with the team, who impressed upon her ideas that would be
helpful in humanizing her orange demon of a spouse, and then she memorized and
parroted them during her part of the show. I don’t know who ghost wrote the
speech but – really guys? Really? Let’s be SUUUUUPER generous and hypothesize
that they didn’t intentionally lift that part of the speech from Mrs. Obama.
There is technology that is used by any credible speech writer which compares
what they have written to blocks of words widely available on the internet. It
is also used by educators – regular public school English teachers up to
Princeton tenured professors. This technology exists because in the internet
age – you honestly have to be concerned that someone will steal your shit, or call you out on your
shit when you plagiarize. So clearly, they failed at their job – which was to
write a speech for Trump Wife #3 that was original enough to pass internet muster
while simultaneously humanizing her husband.
So, if they wanted to successfully save face, the Trump camp
should have thrown these idiots under the bus. “The speech writing staff was to
blame, because we hate Obama and we’ve
never seen Michelle Obama speak before so there’s no way we could have known!” should have been their (stupidass)
response. But what was their response? Everything ranging from “this was entirely
original; it was an expression of alike ideas” to “IT’S ALL THAT BITCH HILLARY’S
FAULT!!!” Keeping things 100: you all know I don’t have any love for Hillary,
but trying to blame her for the laser like focus the media gave to this gaffe
is like blaming Vladimir Putin for the backlash: they’re both completely, undeniably uninvolved and not responsible
for the way this story took off, despite both being evil geniuses.
The entire RNC has been nothing but a bash-Clinton party so
far– which ultimately shows us that yet again, the Republican Party has ABSOLUTELY
NOTHING TO OFFER IN TERMS OF IDEAS AND SOLUTIONS to the problems that plague our nation. It’s all smoke and
mirrors! Who opened up Monday night? John McCain? Nope. George Bush (either of
them)? No. Karl Rove? Nay. Dick Cheney? Afraid not. SARAH PALIN? Noooooo. Well,
who then? THREE TELEVISION ACTORS AND RICK PERRY. That’s who spoke (aside from
Melania) opening night. Scott “Chachi” Baio, Antonio Sabato Jr (I CANT EVEN
NAME A SINGLE FUCKING THING HE HAS ACTED IN), that guy from Duck Dynasty (the
main one, not his deplorable father), and Rick “if you can’t beat em, join em” Perry
– former Governor of Texas, a state never once known for the sanity or level
headedness of its citizenry. Let that sink in. Reality television stars are the
key note speakers of the Republican convention. The strategy is terrifyingly
simple, then, albeit dastardly brilliant: the sheeple of America worship “unscripted”
television featuring falsely wholesome protagonists: they don’t know and they
don’t care to know how anything actually works in their country, they just know
that their lives suck and that there are more brown and black and gay people than
ever in America, so they must be at least partially to blame for destroying the
American dream, right??? Who better than to drive that racist bigoted garbage
home than the stars of TLC and VH1 Reality shows? Fly over America feels like
they know Chachi – even though Happy
Days aired like 40 years ago – so he must know their plight!
Trump’s campaign is a modified Southern strategy, but
instead of playing just on racial resentment among Southern voters (he’s definitely
got that angle covered on a national scale), he’s also capturing the
non-critical thinking couch potato demographic by parading a cavalcade of
D-list celebrities to propagate his campaign to the masses.
To be fair, the Democratic Party definitely benefits from
the endorsements of many Hollywood actors and media personalities. How much did
George Clooney spend on the Clinton fundraiser this year!? We all remember back
in 2005 when Kanye said that George Bush doesn’t care about black people at
that Hurricane Katrina relief event. And anything and everything Seth
MacFarlane does is blatantly anti-conservative. The bottom line being – the Republicans
have finally caught on and are using the morally bankrupt nature of fame whores
to their advantage, to great effect. Not to be discounted, however, is the fact
that traditional Republican heavyweights want nothing to do with Trump – so even
if it weren’t to their advantage to use reality television personalities in
their campaign, they don’t have Karl Rove or John McCain or George W. to fall
back on – so they’d have to use alternatives anyway.
Ultimately, the facts are: Trump is a buffoon; a charlatan
born with a silver spoon in his mouth who realized that one’s brand is fiscally
worth more than having substance or integrity, and took that idea to the bank
(and then filed for bankruptcy 4 times when his bluster and legal team budgets
weren’t enough to keep his businesses afloat). He doesn’t give a crap about
everyday Americans – this is all a wild ego trip for him. This speech gaffe –
among countless other red flags – is just further proof that he has ZERO crises
management skills, ZERO experience governing a body of heterogeneous people,
and ZERO believability as a competent leader.
I’ll continue to giggle at clever internet memes berating
the RNC and it’s pathetic pandering to small minded people, but behind every
laugh I will cringe in fear because the sheer amount of sheeple in this country
is enough where we do need to worry
about the possibility of a President Trump – because lies and douchebaggery no
longer disqualify you from public office.
Friday, July 8, 2016
Stop shaking your head and DO SOMETHING!
Facts: two black men who didn’t deserve to die for their perceived crimes were killed by police
this week, and these murders incited a deranged asshole with a sniper rifle to
act out in vengeance for these crimes by targeting white police officers at a
Black Lives Matter protest in Dallas – resulting in the murders of 5 police and
at least 7 other injured people.
I was disturbed by the videos of the deaths of Alton
Sterling and Philando Castile – I cried after 3 seconds worth of footage of
Castile and had to avoid the internet for hours. I woke up this morning and
heard news of violence against police in Texas and my heart broke even worse. I’m
livid and despondent because EVERYDAY now people are being gunned down
senselessly in America because as a society we refuse to address
pernicious behaviors and injustices; instead we stand on soap boxes and write
bitter social media posts and share half-baked memes that only perpetuate
hatred and bigotry.
We need to accept the fact that there are law enforcement
officers that are not fit to wear the badge, because they are exceedingly aggressive/racist/bigots/are
corrupt – whatever the case may be. There are poisoned apples in EVERY profession
that serves the public; law enforcement is NO exception. I will quickly assert
that the majority of police are upstanding men and women who got into police
work for the right reasons and act
according to the law, but they need
to be the ones who call these bad apples out on their shit. The Black Lives
Matter movement and public statements from government officials and general
outrage from social media count for shit; the truth is good cops allow the
fragile trust that the public has for law enforcement to degrade and civil
rights to be trampled every time they hide behind the “brotherhood of blue” and
blindly defend a bad cop who needlessly gunned down a citizen whose crime did
not merit violent retaliation from police. This
is a societal cancer; an institutionalized way of thinking that pervades
across the nation – that an officer’s life is inherently at risk whenever they
approach or stop a civilian of color, regardless of what the person is being
questioned about. It’s also a given that the life of the civilian is
automatically worth less than the life of the law enforcement official, so when
a completely innocent man such as Philando Castile is gunned down in his car
having violated NO LAWS, with legal gun permits and calm disclosure of his
concealed carry weapon, no one from the NRA or from the upper echelons of law
enforcement rose up and decried the murdering officer – they looked for ways to
drag the victim’s name in the dirt, and when no dirt could be found, his death was
labeled “a senseless tragedy.”
This happened to Alton Sterling, a small time criminal who
was gunned down the day prior to Castile in Louisiana, who was killed by two
officers who have a history of being investigated for police brutality. Did the
man have a criminal record? Sure. Does the fact that he had a criminal record/the fact that he was breaking a minor law when he was initially approached by police justify
the fact that he was murdered for struggling during his apprehension? NO. He
should have spent the night in the slammer with some bruises and a fat lip and endured
the punishment of his crime – but because he was a black man in a racist
backwater at the mercy of brutal police officers, his murder is seen by most as
an acceptable result of his life choices. It’s the same disgusting mentality
people use against rape victims: what did you expect; flirting/wearing those
close/being in a bar? Silly black man: what did you expect selling bootleg CDs in a parking lot? I’m not suggesting Sterling was an angel – it’s the same
bullshit that happened when Michael Brown was murdered. These men were entitled
to a fair trial for their crimes – but they received bullets instead. The job
of a police officer is a difficult one, and I agree they are over worked, under
staffed, stressed, and often in danger and do not receive thanks often enough
for all they do. But none of those
reasons should entitle a police officer to shoot first and ask questions later
during a simple stop or arrest. I fully understand that law enforcement
officers want to be able to go home and kiss their spouse and children at
night, and in theory any person on the street could strip them of this ability –
but when police place no value on the lives of the people they are charged with
protecting, even if these people have committed a crime and deserve to be
apprehended – we don’t have order, we have totalitarianism.
WE CANNOT CONTINUE TO GRANT AUTHORITY FIGURES CARTE BLANCHE TO DO WHATEVER THEY
WANT SIMPLY BECAUSE THEY WEAR A BADGE, OR A PRIEST COLLAR, OR HAVE A HIGH
SECURITY CLEARANCE! If those who enforce our laws are exempt from laws – we don’t
have order. We have what we currently have: anarchy, in which anyone
with a grudge against any category of people (minorities, law enforcement,
Muslims, LGBT, etc) can legally buy a gun, and carry out a killing spree.
WHICH BRINGS ME TO MY CENTRAL POINT: we live in a society
that encourages
violence by continuing to allow the Second Amendment to go largely unchecked; where
the law unequally applies to people
of color with respect to the right to bear arms. Think about the string of
murders this week: two black men who were armed but not acting violently prior
to their encounters with police (ONE OF WHOM LEGALLY HAD HIS WEAPON ON HIS
PERSON AND DECLARED AS MUCH), and innocent officers performing their duty at a
Black Lives Matter protest in Dallas – states away from where those two murders
took place. The common denominator here appears to be police interaction with
the public, but that happens every day in every town in America. The common
denominator here is the presence of firearms. When a state allows people to
legally carry guns on their person; it is IMPOSSIBLE for law enforcement to
tell immediately if that weapon is lawful or not on a citizen. EVEN IF IT IS
LAWFULLY OWNED, WHO IS TO SAY THE OWNER WILL NOT COMMIT HOMICIDE WITH IT?!
Naturally, the police proceed aggressively – because in a world where any
citizen may be packing, a police officer may be the victim of gun violence. So
it is on the one hand understandable why police overreact and use unnecessary
violence against citizens who they perceive to be suspicious (disproportionally
men of color). But it is also unacceptable for the police to just decide that
because a person seems threatening they automatically lose their right to LIVE
without even a hint at due process. WE CANNOT HAVE IT BOTH WAYS – either we constrict
access to guns to the point where the police don’t have to panic every time
someone reaches into their pocket or glove compartment for their ID, or we
continue to let every Joe Schmo have a gun and the police DO need to fear for
their lives because of the prevalence of guns and we wind up with the sort of
escalating retaliatory murders we saw this week.
Secondly: if we could set aside our murder weapons for even
an hour; if we could just sit and talk human to human, we would see that all of
this blind, viral, infectious hatred that we have against sub-sets of other
people based on stupid shit like their race/ethnicity/religion/sexuality is entirely
based on fear and devoid of any kind of logic. We need to recognize that the world is very rarely as simple as black
and white – you cannot relegate people into “Good” or “Bad” simply because
they are black, or lesbian, or worship a different invisible man in the sky
than you, or they committed a crime once and served a prison sentence. Not
everyone who wears a badge is a corrupt monster, and not everyone who has committed
a crime is an evil deviant. The fuckers that compose ISIS kill as many Muslims
as they do Christians or other religious minorities – not all Muslims are
terrorists. Not all white people are racist bigots, and not all Christians are
homophobes. We need to stop following leaders that point their hypocritical
lying fingers at groups of people as being the culprits for all of our social
and economic woes (THAT IS A BLATANT REFERENCE TO TRUMP AND MOST OF CONGRESS)
and we need to start assessing facts and thinking critically whenever we hear
some statistic rattled off on the news or on Facebook. My immediate enemy is
not a sociopathic police officer, or a black man with a criminal record, or a
white supremacist asshole: my immediate enemies are sheeple that form opinions about
a category of people based on cultural and social stereotypes who then proceed
to support violence and civil rights violations against these people through
apathy, because if you refuse to stand up for EQUAL RIGHTS UNDER THE LAW FOR
ALL CITIZENS, if you refuse to call a spade a spade no matter how high ranking
or seemingly respectable this person is, if you refuse to recognize injustice
and just sit idly by while people you don’t know are victimized by biased and
violent social institutions, you are a pathetic waste of human consciousness and
a disgrace to the values that this country was founded on.
Societal problems are not easily solved, nor quickly solved,
but through dialogue and peaceful protests we can achieve something closer to
equal rights and equal protection under the law. We cannot protest in peace
when guns are as prevalent as cars. We must vote for representatives who
recognize the difficulties faced by their constituents; we need an electorate
that will legislate in ways that foster non-violence and conflict resolution at
the community level. What we have is a nation divided by irrational hatreds
rooted in religious and socioeconomic misinformation, and an electorate that is
so corrupted by money and influence from wealthy interest groups that nothing
is ever accomplished in the interest of the common American. Social mobility is
dead, along with the American dream because of student loan and healthcare
debts, and still we cling to our precious guns and blame undocumented Hispanics
or war refugees from Syria for everything that afflicts us. WAKE. THE FUCK. UP.
If we spent as much effort uniting to fight against the institutions that actually
oppress us – no matter race or class or religion – as we do scapegoating and
infighting – we would actually have a nation worth waking up in everyday. A
nation where your positive choices and merits allow you to succeed, where you
can go to the movie or to a social gathering without the fear of being gunned
down by a homicidal gun-owner with a grudge, a nation where the pigment in your
skin doesn’t increase the likelihood of you being arrested or killed by police,
a nation where you can walk down the street wearing conservative dress or a
hijab and not have to wonder if this will incite violence from a person of a
different religion, or wear a very tight dress and not have to live in fear of
being raped on your way home from a party. Stop shaking your head and DO
SOMETHING. Stand up to injustice, please, or everything the Founding Fathers
sought to do 240 years ago was for nothing. Just a belatedly failed revolution
for the history books.
Friday, June 17, 2016
Why the USA is in DESPERATE need of stronger gun control legislation, and why that is only the FIRST step towards fixing what the true problems are...
It’s hard to even know where to begin. What actually plagues
America with respect to (lack of) gun control, terrorism, xenophobia,
homophobia, and bigotry is so complex and dense you can’t accurately reflect on
the problem in a brief social media post or an internet meme. So I will systematically
lay out my position on why we are the mass shooting capital of the world, and
what can be done to change this, in this post. If you are allergic to long
written assessments or things like facts and common sense – you needn’t read
any further. I’d also like to clarify the difference between OPINIONS and FACTS
before I continue, because Americans have an awfully hard time distinguishing
between the two; an issue that fans the fires of conflict that are currently devouring
our society. Here are the definitions of both words, lifted directly from our
friend Dictionary.com:
Opinion: noun
1) A belief or judgment that rests on grounds insufficient to produce complete
certainty 2) A personal view, attitude, or appraisal.
Fact: noun
1) Something that actually exists; reality; truth 2) something known to exist
or to have happened.
So to recap: facts exist outside of human perception and rely
on logic and investigation (using the Scientific Method) as proof of their
credibility. Opinions cannot be proven by their very nature, and are often
driven by a person’s religious/cultural/socioeconomic background which informs
their personal philosophies. For instance, it is my personal opinion that Game of Thrones is
currently the best show on television. It isn’t a fact – there’s no
qualitative/quantitative data that can be used to prove this (award show
nominations and wide spread favorability do not count) – that’s just how I feel
because of various qualities the show has that I appreciate. This, however, is
a fact: since the shooting at Sandy
Hook Elementary on 12/14/2012, there have been 998 mass shootings in America (‘mass
shooting’ as defined by Gun Violence Archive as 4 or more deaths not counting
the shooter)[i].
Another fact: in 2016 alone, there
have been 133 mass shootings (gun deaths/injuries unrelated to
massacres are plentiful also: in 2016, 23 accidental shootings committed by toddlers have happened. TODDLERS.). The
reasons behind these shootings are many, but all have one thing in common: a gun permitted the (male) perpetrator to
commit these crimes and acts of terror based on whatever fucked up ideology
they were acting upon.
The
following is my opinion; therefore
you can either agree or disagree with me. I think that in a civilized society,
guns belong strictly in the hands of people who are serving in our armed
forces, to be used against foreign or domestic aggressors. I think without the
constant threat of guns in civilian homes, the police and other law enforcement
agencies should also be without firearms when serving the public – but allowed
to carry defensive weapons to protect themselves and citizens, much like the
police today in the United Kingdom. Obviously SWAT teams would be armed if the situation
called for this – also like in the UK. I also believe that guns are a cowardly
weapon. Guns are a lazy way to take lives: it shouldn’t be so easy to kill a
room full of people in less than 5 minutes. Violence should always be a last
resort in any and every conflict, PERIOD. Proponents say guns “level the
playing field” so that the physical prowess or numbers within an army don’t
matter as much in the resulting battles, but all it really does is dehumanize
the opponent. Killing should be something we feel the weight of; to serve as a
deterrent from resorting to war. There is no dignity to be found in mowing down
anonymous enemies. There is no honor in killing at all, even in skilled hand-to-hand
combat. If you know me well, you may think my beliefs hypocritical because
pretty much every movie I love is awash with gun violence (as well as
hand-to-hand combat): The Matrix, every Tarantino movie ever made, Hot Fuzz,
etc. But those are works of fiction, and I live in a very real world – watching
a cathartic shoot out in a film is not something that I want to emulate or
observe in real life. At all. EVER. A world with a minimal amount of violent
bloodshed is a lofty ideal, to be sure, may be even a wholly unrealistic one:
but that’s the sort of place I’d like to live in, and raise my son in. Why
would any reasonable person disagree with that?
Now, my
opinion is just that: an opinion. It
counts for nothing when compared to the law regarding US citizens’ right to own
guns, as protected by the Second Amendment of the Constitution. Any gun-zealots
who are currently foaming at the mouth can relax, because as much as I’d love
to see guns disappear from the face of the earth, that will likely never be the
case, and it would be futile to try and force my vision on 308 million American
citizens (if only the deplorable Pro-Life nut jobs trying to ban my
constitutional right to have an abortion shared my pragmatism). Some very
important background on the Second Amendment, and the context in which it was
formed. Post-American Revolution, the Founding Fathers were very much concerned
with the accessibility of firearms due to the tumultuous English history concerning
that subject. Monarchies during the Tudor through the Hanover periods (roughly
1500CE-1800CE)were super fickle: sometimes the King (or Queen) and Parliament
were at war with each other, sometimes they were at war with the Common people
of a specific religion, and depending on their whims, the average (male)
citizen might have been forced to participate in the local militia, or they may
have been harassed and abused by the King’s standing army of professional
soldiers, or they may have been stripped entirely of firearms to prevent an
uprising – the British Isles were rife with conflict. A philosopher/political
theorist that was greatly admired by the winners of our independence from Great
Britain was James Harrington, who is most famous for his theory of classical
republicanism. Harrington believed that a democratic nation formed by popular
election was safest against foreign and domestic threats when the population
was an armed one. He strongly discouraged the use of a standing army because
inevitably the army is used by the government to oppress the people and
maintain power. If the citizens are armed and there are no professional
soldiers, the thinking was that political power would remain in the hands of
the people, instead of in a tyrannical government, as was often the case under
European Monarchs. There was also a perceived advantage from an economic standpoint;
a nation run by a monarch or an aristocracy tended to favor not having armed
citizens for fear of an uprising, and sometimes had to resort to hiring foreign
mercenaries to handle their conflicts, which was expensive. In a democracy with
armed citizens (who are in theory satisfied with their governmental
representation), the public was thought to be more willing to come to the
defense of their nation should a conflict arise.[ii]
So when
the Constitution was first being drafted, the Founding Fathers were really more
concerned about the power of Congress to raise a standing army vs. assembling
state militias – not with assuring that any Joe Schmo could have a gun just ‘because.’
There was a lot of fear with respect to a standing army that we really can’t
relate to today considering our national pride in all the different branches of
our Armed Services (our current military is a “standing army,” if you hadn’t
guessed by now – funny how things change over time, huh?). There was a lot of
squabbling that took place about this (won’t bore you with details about the
Federalist view vs. the Anti-federalist view), but it was basically unanimously
believed that the greatest danger to the new republic was a tyrannical
government, and that the ultimate check on tyranny was an armed population.[iii]
It was decided that the whole of the (white male) population would comprise the
militia of the United States of America. The framers of the Constitution felt
that by protecting each individual's (again: white males) right to arms they
were preserving freedom and empowering the people to resist tyranny and
preserve the republic.[iv]
Oh, how
the times have changed since 1791. This traditional idea of the nation-wide militia
faded into history; state-based militia organizations were eventually
incorporated into the federal military structure we are more familiar with
today.[v]
But even though civilian Americans are no longer expected to use their
household guns for militia duty (the US Armed Services obviously provides all
munitions to their soldiers) – we’re still allowed to keep guns because the
Second Amendment is vague enough to ensure this. TRUTHBOMB: I don’t actually
have a problem with suburbanites having a pistol for home protection, or for a
rancher to have a few rifles to ward off wild animals and the like. If you live
in Bumblefuck, Wyoming on a farm and there are coyotes or mountain lions
threatening your livestock, I have no problem with you using a firearm to protect
your animals - presuming you aren’t an abusive felon with a documented mental
illness and a history of violence or links to terror organizations. Breaking
and entering is still a common crime and if you live in a non-gated community,
I agree that if you want to have a hand gun on premises to fight off someone
who has broken into your home to protect your family, it is your right and you
should be able to do that - presuming you aren’t an abusive felon with a
documented mental illness and a history of violence or links to terror
organizations. If you’re an outdoorsy type and you have the proper hunting
licenses and such, you should be allowed a firearm to hunt - presuming you
aren’t an abusive felon with a documented mental illness and a history of violence
or links to terror organizations. You
see what I did there? I agreed that under the rights provided to US citizens
under the 2nd Amendment, people should be able to have basic
firearms – until something about their actions or psychology disqualifies them
from ownership.
Take it
easy, libertarian zealots. I can hear you ranting about how “gun control is
unconstitutional” all the way over here. I call bullshit. Let’s take a look at
the exact wording of the 2nd Amendment: “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.” It is clear and unambiguous that the first
part of this right references REGULATION: “A well regulated Militia.” Much like
the 4th Amendment, which protects our right to privacy, the document
recognizes the authority of the government to conduct reasonable searches and seizures.[vi]
Gun control has existed since the founding of this country. No joke. You think
there weren’t laws on the books forbidding slaves to learn how to use/gain
access to an arsenal of firearms? You think there weren’t laws about minimizing
concealed weapons in public spaces?[vii] In truth there have been many restrictions on
the books since the early 1800s, and ever since the first cases challenging
these gun controls for supposed violations of the 2nd Amendment, courts have
repeatedly held that “reasonable” gun laws - those that don’t completely deny
access to guns by law-abiding people - are constitutionally permissible.[viii]
Based
on the fact that US History has proven that gun control is considered lawful by
the courts when the laws are “reasonable,” I feel as though banning military-grade
weapons from civilian usage and installing intensive background checks and
waiting periods to purchase guns is a reasonable restriction, in light of the
fact that a known wife-abuser/homophobe/racist/ISIS sympathizer/FBI watchlist
member by the name of Omar Mateen bought an AR15 with no trouble and proceeded
to murder 50 people and injury 53 others in an Orlando nightclub this weekend. AND
THAT WASN’T EVEN THE FIRST MURDER COMMITED WITH A GUN THAT WEEKEND IN ORLANDO.
Sadly,
this event – the most deadly mass shooting in American history – is just the
latest in a trend of mass murders committed by disaffected twenty-something
males. I am disgusted by how the media and many public servants have reacted to
this tragedy. Nobody expresses my sentiment better than Samantha Bee did in a
segment on her political-comedy show, Full Frontal. If you have the time, I
would watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t88X1pYQu-I
The gist of it is: many Americans feel similarly about the
issue of gun control; that a gun that can fire 18 rounds per second has no
place in the hands of a civilian, that no one with a known history of domestic
abuse or mental illness should be able to have access to a firearm and to
ensure this you should have to pass a background check and/or obtain a license,
etc. But because of special interest groups like the NRA – who has a financial
investment in the firearm industry, and has effectively bribed and paid for the
loyalty of the Republican tea party opportunists who make up the majority of
our Congress – no such restrictions have been passed OR EVEN ALLOWED TO BE
BROUGHT UP FOR DISCUSSION, not even after a deranged creep murdered 26 people
– 20 of which were children – at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012. Nowhere
does it guarantee in the Constitution “the right to bear a gun that can kill
dozens of people without even having to stop to reload.” In 1791, the guns
available to the common citizen were the guns you would use if you were called
to serve in the militia, or to hunt that night’s dinner– a long rifle or a
musket.[ix]
Those things fired ONE MUSKETBALL AT A TIME: and the reload time was somewhere
between 2-3 minutes! Our gun control laws are so pathetically outdated we don’t
even require someone to have a license buy a gun: but you need one to cut hair
or buy a car legally. You don’t even need to show a form of identification to buy a gun
in some states: but you have to show State ID to cast a vote in an election in
some of those very same states! There need to be stricter laws put in place to
prevent homicidal monsters from gunning down innocent people literally every
other day in this country. The right to
own any piece of equipment classified under the label “gun” should not trump
the right of every citizen to not be in danger of being gunned down while they
attend religious services, or have a night out at the movies or a nightclub, or
attending/instructing school.
A
related stinking pile of bull crap that I would like to address is the
assertion that “gun control only punishes law abiding citizens because
criminals will find a way to break the law.” Another TV show host who perfectly
expressed my sentiment on this topic is Trevor Noah of The Daily Show, who had
this to say in response to the Orlando Massacre: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RolEI5n4Jxs
By claiming “gun
control only punishes law abiding citizens because criminals will find a way to
break the law” you are also asserting that after September 11, 2001, we
shouldn’t have bothered establishing the TSA to screen flyers /expanded the
no-fly list/tried to prevent any other homicidal terrorist fanatics from high
jacking airplanes to fly them into buildings, because it’s positively inevitable that hijackings will take
place – we shouldn’t even attempt to stop
them because frisking flyers and searching their bags is a violation of their
right to privacy. It is exactly
analogous. Fox News cultists always detract from the issue of mass
shootings by claiming the real problem is “radical Islam” (ignoring the fact that
996 of the 998 most recent mass shootings were committed by white non-Muslim males), that the real
issue is terrorist ISIS sympathizers. To be clear: Islamic fundamentalism is a huge problem in the world and I
will address religious fanaticism later.
When addressing the issue of combating ISIS, Noah stated “removing their
weapons dramatically decreases their ability to hurt us.” This is a factual
statement – without the weapons necessary to kill us, ISIS is just a hateful
ideology. Rightwing talking heads on Fox News don’t see a connection between
gun laws and terrorism – but religious fundamentalists sure as hell do. An
ideology is unable to hurt us until some fanatic picks up a weapon, like an
AR15 or an AK47 or an M16, and uses it to cut down non-believers. ISIS, and
their cohorts and predecessors Al-Quaeda are not ignorant of this fact: they
are well aware that here in America, guns are as prevalent as baseball or apple
pie. And please please PLEASE don’t start an argument that “taking away our
guns makes us a more attractive target for terrorists” – WE HAVE ACCESS TO ALL
THE GUNS WE CAN POSSIBLY WANTAND IT HASN’T DETERRED SHIT. There is NO
evidence that having more guns in the public sphere has decreased instances of
violence in the US. I would argue it has encouraged
violence because again: as far back as 2011, Al Quaeda[x]
was preaching to potential jihadists that America is a great place to wage holy
war because of the easy access to and availability of guns. To have every Dick,
Tom and Harry wandering the streets with a gun tucked in his pants because “it
may deter an act of violence” is an invitation to witness a murder during every road rage incident, every drunken challenge
to an idiot’s masculinity, every confrontation between a parent and a soccer
coach, and so on and so on.
Here
come the Machiavellian devil’s advocates who will argue that “your desire to
get rid of guns is understandable because of massacres and so forth, but you’re
operating under the assumption that people follow rules and the fact is they
don’t: so without guns, we let criminals run our lives, and if not criminals,
than the corrupt government. We need guns to protect ourselves blah blah blah.”
Let’s talk about those criminals, shall we? YES: Large-scale backdoor arms
deals are a huge threat to the world: they provide weapons for oppressive regimes
to use against their own citizens, they arm separatist warlords to rebel
against unsavory governments, they arm terrorist organizations like ISIS and Al
Quaeda and the Taliban and the IRA (that’s right! Terrorist organizations can
be white!), they arm thuggish biker gangs and gang-bangers. This is a problem, and the governments of the
world have done a pretty shitty job reining in this thriving black market. More
needs to be done to reduce the amount of arms and ammunition being manufactured
and sold without any regulation whatsoever, more needs to be done to prevent
unregistered gun/ammo factories from popping up on the down low, and
confiscated illegal arms should be melted down and destroyed to get them off
the street for good. But that won’t solve that fact that it is often
LEGITIMATELY ELECTED GOVERNMENTS that arm fledgling resistance movements in
foreign nations! Remember the takeover of the Crimea in Ukraine two years ago?
That was backed by the Russian government, despite what Putin likes to claim. Remember
way back when the CIA supported the Taliban in Afghanistan during the Soviet
invasion in the early 1980s?? Talk about something coming back to bite you in
the ass. So am I saying that corrupt governments are really the truest threat
to the regular people of the world? Were the Founding Father’s right? YES- but not in the way that they assumed! The standing
army of the US government isn’t the most directly dangerous entity to regular
everyday Americans –the lack of action and
oversight from the legislative body is what really endangers the common
citizen: because the immediate physical threat we face is from EACH OTHER. Additionally, our
over-zealous use of the judicial system which disproportionately threatens the safety
of minority populations in the US does not address the root of our troubles- it
simply punishes offenders without questioning why it is that people steal, or rape, or kill.
This
brings us to my next point, which is that the reason we are the mass-shooting capital
of the world is mostly because we refuse
to recognize that a problem can be multifaceted and complex, with many
factors at play. Humans tend to want to simplify things to be able to
understand them better, but often in a situation - like the one we find
ourselves in - they are NOT simple. It’s NOT just one thing causing a problem. Trevor
Noah correctly states in the above video clip that the most recent massacre
perpetrated on American soil is a problem of both (lack of) gun laws and terrorism. I would go even further
and add “religious/cultural-based intolerance of homosexuality” to that list of causes.
Omar Mateen should have been unable to purchase any type of firearm because
1)He had been under investigation by the FBI TWICE for being linked to
terrorist websites 2)he was a known domestic abuser. But because in Florida
there are no laws that require gun sellers to research criteria like this
before making a sale, nor is there a database for them to access this
information about customers– he was able to buy an AR15 from a seller perfectly
happy to take his money (ironically, from a former NYPD officer who is an
anti-Muslim bigot). Not all gun dealers are irresponsible or without a
conscience: we now know Mateen was turned away from another vendor because he
seemed suspicious. But clearly not all gun sellers are concerned with the
public’s wellbeing; just being able to make a profit and uphold the 2nd
Amendment.
Another
factor that has been downplayed greatly in the press has been the fact the
nightclub that was chosen by Mateen was a gay club. His ex-wife has made statements
that Mateen was homophobic and she believes that was because he was gay
himself. The bartender at Pulse, the site of the massacre, has said that Mateen
was a frequent patron. You could say that is because he was scoping the place
out for his crime, but honestly? He was probably a man trapped in the closet
because Islamic culture is intolerant of homosexuality. Scratch that: American culture is intolerant of
homosexuality. With laws being passed in the South that are policing the tiny
transgender population’s usage of bathrooms and other “religious freedom” bills
pushing for the right of employers to be able to fire LGBT people because of
their closely held religious beliefs, is anyone really surprised that this attack
happened? This act of murder was as much an expression of self-loathing as it
was an execution of jihadist Islamic fanaticism.
Let’s
address the fact that the large majority of mass shootings that take place in
America are un-related to Islamic terrorism. Terrorism, by the way, is not
unique to Islam. Remember the Oklahoma City Bombing? Prior to 9/11, this was
the most prolific terror attack on American soil and it was perpetrated by a
domestic terrorist; a white man and Persian Gulf War-veteran who wanted revenge
against the federal government for their bungled siege in Waco, TX two years to
the day before the bombing, and for his belief that the federal government was
encroaching on American’s 2nd Amendment rights.[xi]
He was also known to be a white supremacist sympathizer – basically the exact ideological opposite of an Islamic
terrorist. Let’s remember the 9 innocent church goers who were murdered almost
exactly a year ago in Charleston, SC when a racist white guy joined them at
their bible study and then opened fire and murdered them all because they were
black. This miserable bastard later told a law enforcement official that his
intention was to start a race war. Let’s remember Sandy Hook Elementary in
December 2014, when over 2 dozen people were senselessly gunned down in an
elementary school by a mentally unhinged pedophile whose enabler mother
regularly purchased him firearms thinking “they would give him confidence.”[xii]
These are only two examples, but the motives here were vastly different: the
only common denominators were that the killer had a homicidal goal and a gun
with which to carry out this goal.
Now we
can talk about religious fanaticism. I will stress that acts of violence
inspired by religious fanaticism are not exclusively the domain of Islam:
Christianity had them beat in numbers waaaaaaaay before the Islamic conquests
of the Middle Ages. The religious fanatics that get the most press these days are
Islamic, there’s no disputing this. Since 9/11, the idea of what our enemy looks
like changed from the Cold War-era “Socialist” to the Middle Eastern jihadist.
There is no denying that Islamic terror is a problem in nations all over the
world; most recently France has had a number of gun massacres and attempted
bombings, and Israel is perpetually at war with Hamas-backed Palestine. But
Christians regularly shoot and kill people because of a homicidal ideology too
- they don’t usually garner the same level of national attention because their
body counts tends to be smaller and for some hypocritical reason it isn’t considered
an act of terror to shoot up an abortion clinic or the sidewalk outside of a
synagogue – that’s “hate crime” territory. How we define a crime is semantic
legalese: by using violence to end the lives of others because they don’t conform
to your brand of fanaticism, you are both a terrorist and a hate crime
perpetrator in my understanding, if not the judicial systems.’ For more
information on the difference between “hate crimes” and “terrorism” and the
hypocritical inconsistencies about when these terms are applied to crimes,
please read this article, it’s short but insightful: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-33205339
Here’s where I enter really dangerous territory: organized
religion is a haven for blood thirsty demagogues to spew their philosophies of
hatred to large groups of people under the guise of spiritual fulfillment.
Because the US Constitution guaranteed the right to freedom of religion in the
1st Amendment, it is extremely difficult to confront hatemongers
because they hold the title “Pastor” or “Bishop” or “Imam” or “Rabbi.” We
challenge literally every other type of authority in this nation on the regular
(reports of people attacking police, school teachers, and their own parents are
quite common) – but if they’re toting a Bible/Torah/Koran, we can’t challenge
radical fundamentalists of any religion because religion is viewed as something
inviolable that should never be
questioned. Yes, the majority of religious people are not running around
committing mass murder with their legally owned AR15s – they are law abiding,
respectful citizens, who practice what their religions actually preach: peace. But for disaffected socially alienated men (and
sometimes women – women are often the perpetrators of suicide bombings) who are
looking for something to belong to, a radical idea that speaks to their
feelings of isolation and victimization and bigotry is a fast track to mass
murder, made that much easier by the proliferation of guns in the US. Radical
ideas can come from sources other than religion, of course. Nazism is an
ideology not based on religion, but it preaches hatred towards anyone who isn’t
a blond haired, blue eyed person of European descent, with a specific niche
hatred of Jewish people.
Those
who are most susceptible to ideological radicalization are often those who
suffer from some sort of social anomie or untreated childhood trauma. This
brings me to my next point: many people who perpetrate mass gun murders are disgruntled
or sociopathic; having slipped through the cracks of the mental health and
education systems un-checked into adulthood. Let’s face it: our mental health
infrastructure is a joke. The only people who seem to get treatment are people
who have already attempted suicide, and that’s only if they were treated at a
hospital with connections to mental health facilities. We stigmatize the
concept of mental illness as a culture, dismissing the importance of mental
health with demeaning biases about spiritual or inner strength, and we only ever seem to
care about it politically until the aftermath of one of our many mass shootings[xiii]
– when we bring it up to deflect the discussion from gun control to our poor
mental health system because clearly the shooter was “insane” or “disturbed.”
It is impossible to say with any certainty if any of the perpetrators of the
past 998 mass shootings would have still committed their murders if they had
been treated for their social ills – perhaps they still would have been
radicalized by whatever ideology inspired them to commit mass murder, perhaps
not. While I agree that our society needs to make mental health checkups a
component of basic healthcare and to make psychological treatment easier to
seek/afford, this won’t prevent fanatics from gunning down innocent people
because we don’t consider racism, homophobia, xenophobia, or bigotry “mental
illnesses.” They are SOCIAL illnesses, which can only be addressed by
aggressive education and accountability for why hatred based on skin color or
ethnic origin or sexual orientation is not only wrong, it is DANGEROUS.
To sum
up: taking assault rifles out of the hands of civilians or limiting the amount
of firearms/ammunition that they can purchase or closely monitoring the sales
and manufacture of firearms won’t prevent all violent attacks from happening:
it will only reduce the number of mass murders committed. If there is a will,
there is a way to harm another person or a group of people, whether it is with
a knife or a bomb or a pencil. But when you have a problem that is so prolific
and widespread, the answer should not be “don’t change anything” or even worse
“make guns easier to buy.” That’s like saying you should prevent a fire by
putting more flammable objects in the vicinity of a flame or prevent drowning
by encouraging people to swim in un-guarded water – it’s asinine and logically
absurd. Enacting stricter gun control is
only the first step to making our country a safer place – while that is
being accomplished, we can also work on the festering wounds that actually
inspire gun violence: social alienation, stigmas about mental health, poor
mental healthcare systems, hateful ideologies like racism/homophobia/xenophobia,
unchecked fanatical religious movements, corrupt elected officials, and
unchecked bribery lobbies like the NRA. To accomplish this we will have to vote
the corrupt lackeys that compose our current Congress and elect officials who
actually care about the lives and safety of their constituents, and to do this
we need to educate ourselves about the social, political, and economic issues
that affect our everyday lives and vote for representatives that have a record
and a platform worth standing up for. If we followed the simple precept of “Don’t
resort to violence when faced with conflict unless you have to defend your life
or the life of someone you love,” we could concentrate our efforts on the
things that really matter, instead of squabbling over what the real cause of a
mass shooting was.
**** Note – I’ve cited sources here in an informal way
because this was not a paper being submitted for peer review; my opinions are
my own and I tried to give credit to the rightful source when bringing up facts
or news articles/videos.
[vi]
http://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/amendments/amendment-ii/the-reasonable-right-to-bear-arms-adam-winkler/interp/2
[vii] Cornell,
Saul (2006). A Well-Regulated Militia: The Founding Fathers and the Origins of
Gun Control in America. New York, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN
978-0-19-514786-5. OCLC 62741396.
[viii]
http://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/amendments/amendment-ii/the-reasonable-right-to-bear-arms-adam-winkler/interp/2
[xi] Michel, Lou; Herbeck, Dan (2002). American
Terrorist: Timothy McVeigh & the Tragedy at Oklahoma City. HarperCollins.
ISBN 0-06-039407-2.
[xii] http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/11/26/we-already-know-what-adam-lanza-s-real-motive-was-at-sandy-hook.html
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