A nation born from violence is highly unlikely to change; violence is in it’s DNA.
Put another way, “Violence is as American as cherry pie.”
US culture is rife with hypocrisy. There is no part of it untainted. Whether the topic is the Catholic Corporation’s highest level cover up of priests’ sexual abuse of children or this nation’s and the world’s most powerful, influential banks routinely engaging in practices that make Tony Soprano look nickel and dime---hypocrisy is endemic. Did I mention, insider trading by the very people who are making the rules?
So the notion that the millionaire’s club in the nation’s capitol, otherwise known as the congress, is going to do anything to in any way, shape or form alter their own world by affecting that of their supporters, the “guns and bibles” crowd, is unlikely at best.
There’s a maddening and vicious circle. The majority US population comprised of the White people profess to being compassionate, conservative Christians. They vote aggressively and violently Republican and control the entire State of Texas. Democrats haven’t won state-wide office in a generation. Those the majority elects take the “public policy” of one-percenters and enact laws of, by and for the one-percent.
This aggressive and violent majority has another affinity, guns. The majority aggressive, violent people then wrap themselves in the “Christ.” Thus they are the “guns and bibles” crowd.
Interestingly the Washington Post reports that, “According to the startling results of a survey released last week by the Public Religion Research Institute, 57 percent of white evangelicals live in homes where someone owns a gun (compared, for example, with 31 percent of Catholics.) And more startling, even after 20 first-graders were slaughtered in Connecticut at the hands of a madman with an assault rifle, 59 percent of white evangelicals continue to oppose tighter restrictions on gun laws.”
So it’s not too hard to see why the rock star wannabe, lapdogs of the rich and powerful and the “guns and bibles” crowd wouldn’t rock that boat.
The leading arguments for a strong Second Amendment are based on the unshakeable truth that, “The Second Amendment is approved by God.” Based on the temperament and history of the “hell fire and brimstone” God of the old testament who started killing the creation as soon as it was created, I can see that.
To quote Texas Governor and Goombah, Rick Perry, “Only prayer can conquer gun violence.” What else could anyone expect from the man who during his tenure has killed more than 250 men on behalf the fine people of the Lone Star State where guilt is not a requirement for the death penalty. If the guv says so, then it must be so.
See, now that brings us to the next argument; “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” and I covered that in a recent blog. These compassionate conservative “Christians” however, blame it on the devil.
During most of humanity’s history when those who claimed to be of, by and for the gods (monarchs) accused anyone of anything there was no due process, no constitution, no laws to protect the accused. It was so because the near-deity monarch said it was so. Is it any wonder the folk came to have such distrust of those in positions of governance? By the way, monarchs didn’t care whether the devil was involved or not.
That brings us to the all purpose White people argument for anything they don’t approve of, “Curbing gun ownership is the gateway to curbing other rights. Yes, the all-purpose "it's a gateway" argument. “There’s a suspicion of a too-powerful state,” [emphasis added]
From the point of view of a realistic historian with an eye to the Haymarket Square Massacre, the Ludlow Massacre, Shay’s Rebellion, the White people in positions of governance’ response to the Civil Rights Movement, the Freedom Riders and more recently Kent State, the massacre at Waco, I understand a healthy distrust for those in positions of governance. There’s just too many examples of every branch of US governance going out of its respective way to rain down violence on what and whom they perceive as “outlaw.”
What is both interesting and remarkable is that the violence and aggression prone majority population of the US promotes and practices the violence in the name of the Prince of Peace. The Christ did say, when questioned about the “eye for an eye” and “tooth for a tooth” philosophy, “I came to change all of that.”
“Provocative, but unconvincing. Jesus identified with the weak, not the strong; with the victims, not the shooters (or the people with the guns). More than 500 children were killed in accidental gun deaths in 2011. As the Rev. Gary Hall preached at Washington National Cathedral last week, “If we want to stand with Jesus and Martin Luther King, we’ve also got to stand with those who, like them, die by means of violence. . . . That may sound like a hard truth, but for a Christian, there’s no way around it.”
That is not to say that you can’t or shouldn’t own or use a gun. It just means don’t use the Christ to justify it. It doesn’t make any sense, it’s disingenuous and not very “Christ”-like.
From Texas Red: a cratered landscape of prisons, deplorable apartheid public education, lack of healthcare and politicians and majority population intent on keeping it that way…
Hasta Siempre,
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