I'm going to break from my usual routine and write a serious post today, for a change. For those of you who read my blog for it's humor, or what amounts to my occasionally futile efforts towards that end, read no further; this one isn't meant to be funny. I promise to get back to the silliness tomorrow.
I'm writing this on Saturday, 2/5, or four weeks after the tragedy that took place in Tucson, where, as you're all aware, a young man of dubious mental stability gunned down a number of persons outside a Safeway grocery store, killing six, including a nine-year old girl, and critically wounding a United States Congresswoman, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. By now the story has been told repeatedly, so I won't rehash the details here.
Since this horrific event took place, there have been a number of commentators, pundits, politicians and just common everyday citizens weigh in with their opinions about what took place, and what to do about it. Some have claimed that the lack of civility in our political discourse has influenced people like Jerod Lee Loughner, the accused gunman, to commit his cowardly acts. Some have called for increased gun control, a point of view that always surfaces when events of this nature take place, and sadly, those too often. I even heard some vague remarks about the treatment of mentally unstable persons and how society as a whole can be protected from these people, and some talk also of the parent's responsibility in this matter.
To the persons thinking that the political rhetoric is out of hand, I would remind you that the 1st Amendment of our constitution, the greatest political document in mankind's history, says that, while you may not like all the vitriol coming from certain "right-wing" organizations, such as the Tea Party people, it's their right to express themselves. Just as it is the right of an artist to include an image of ants crawling across a crucifix, as was the case recently in a video that the Smithsonian Museum included in one of their exhibits, and subsequently removed under pressure from a number of sources who were offended by the image. Those of you who are offended by the rhetoric, or find this type of imagery distasteful, please remember, one man's art is another man's garbage, if I may coin a phrase. And while I agree with the late Dean Acheson, who was Secretary of State under President Truman, who once opined that "Freedom of speech is a restraint on government, not an incitement to the citizen", you can still say pretty much what you want in this country, libelous remarks and yelling "Fire" in a crowded theatre notwithstanding, whether someone else likes it or not.
To those who want increased control of gun ownership, I would remind you that while the 2nd Amendment of our Constitution gets misconstrued hugely by the gun-rights people, for it truly does not guarantee them the right "to keep and bear arms" as they believe, (and some in-depth research will reveal that the Founders of our great nation had another thought in mind completely when they wrote this amendment), the 2nd, nor any other Amendment, does not prohibit gun ownership, and until such time as our Congress can bring themselves to pass legislation to halt rampant firearms abuse, if ever, owning a gun in this country is permissible.
For those who think that persons of questionable mental stability should be ostracized from polite society, I would remind you that, back in Germany, after Adolf Hitler was elected Chancellor of that country in the early 30's, mental "defectives" were routinely rounded up and sent to concentration camps, where they were summarily slaughtered, in an attempt to keep them from "polluting" the mainstream of German society.
And for anyone who believes, as I do to some degree, that Mr. Loughner's parents bear some culpability in this matter, to my knowledge, there has never been an instance in this country where the parents or guardians of someone accused of committing a crime, large or small, have ever faced criminal charges for the quality of the upbringing they provided the accused person in their family, nor for the failure to report said person to the authorities for suspicious activities.
Essentially, in my mind, it all boils down to this: this is the price we pay for living in a free society.
I am daily offended by the nonsense that flows from both extremes of the political spectrum, from the conservatives and the liberals, and from talking to friends and colleagues, average, everyday working folks that constitute the backbone of our country, and hearing what they have to say, I know I'm not alone in those feelings. It is beyond ridiculous that the fringes seem to be the only ones whose voices we ever hear. But guess what: that's their right, under the 1st Amendment.
For my money, you can take all the handguns in the world and chuck them into the ocean, and outlaw them forever, for all they were ever meant to do was kill another human being, all the posturing of the gun lobby and the NRA to the contrary. But guess what: until that happens, the Constitution doesn't prohibit anyone from owning a gun.
Further, I don't know about you, but as much as I would like to see dangerous, mentally incompetent persons taken off the streets, unless and until someone comes up with a foolproof way to accomplish this, an unlikely possibility, given the capricious nature of mental illness, unless you advocate a return to Nazi-like oppression, it's not going to happen.
And while it might be soothing to those of us who yearn for the application of blame to SOMEONE for the horrors of Columbine, Virginia Tech and Tucson, who among us can say, unequivocally, that upbringing or environment contributed to the failure to control the sick individuals that perpetrate these acts of madness, and that their parents or caretakers should have alerted authorities before they happened and should be punished for their failure to do so.
I apologize for overstating the obvious here, but please bear with me; in America, people can hold whatever opinion they choose, and give voice to that opinion, as they please; in America, there is no prohibition in our laws generally to the owning of a handgun; in America, there are people of diminished capacity roaming our streets, and until they commit some egregious act, their freedom cannot be taken from them; in America, their is no mechanism in our laws for punishing a parent or guardian for not reporting someone in their care for dangerous or seditious thinking or plotting.
You may not like it; I know in many instances I don't. It tears out a little part of my soul every time I read about another of these horrors taking place. But that's the price we pay for living in a free society.
Winston Churchill once said that democracy was a terrible form of government, but that it was ten times better than anything else mankind had come up with previously. And despite what other people in other countries seem to believe to the contrary, this is still, by far, the greatest democracy, the greatest country in the world.
And it's a steep, but necessary, price we pay for that democracy, for that freedom, for that right to live in a free society.
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