Because I am likely a smug, self-righteous ass who practices righteous indignation at every opportunity. My thoughts that I am a generic ass rests on my actions and thoughts of the past 24 hours. Early yesterday I wrote that the tragedy in Conn. would start a fire and fuel the debate about gun control. That didn’t take much intelligence to predict. But 18 hours later the persistent posts about how this event was a gun issue troubles the heck out of me. It defies all empirical data and it shifts the debate from the public health arena where I feel it belongs and makes it a law enforcement debate. The same tactic has been utilized in the abortion and drug debate. There are those who believe the solution to drug abuse is to outlaw drugs. There are those who believe that since they are against abortion, everyone should be legally prohibited from getting an abortion. Gun control advocates believe they can limit crimes of violence by prohibiting the possession of guns. Or they believe in the alternative that their position is justified if the next murderer cannot kill as many people as quickly thus mitigating the carnage. Maybe all the prohibitionists are correct and I am wrong.
If you are what I call a progressive or lefty, then it seems you tend to view the right with derision for their short-sightedness and their demands that we practice what they preach. But the conservatives arrived at those solutions the same way most of you got to the gun control answer. Ignoring facts, drawing conclusions based on feelings or religious convictions and the belief that a complex problem can be resolved through controls on human behaviour. My personal belief is you, who believe that, are guilty of the same crime as the right-wingers that offer that if God were allowed in schools then criminals wouldn’t be found there. It just pains me to see people treating their perspective as truth and marching sharply and in unison behind their causes.
I do not know if guns are the answer to anything. I know what my personal experience is. I do not mistake that experience for even the truth of the moment as I experienced it. Example, I used to think I was a responsible drinker and drug abuser. Time has taught me that I was not responsible but I was an idiot. But I do not extrapolate from that insight that everyone who uses or even abuses drugs is having the same problem I had. I do not presume that abstinence or 12 steps in the sole path to recovery. It is simply my path which I am on today. I take great comfort in the teachings of the Buddhists who emphasize personal responsibility over salvation through religion.
By the way, on a related note, I offer one more reason to hate me. I do not wave the American flag, I stand against religion in government and I do not believe in controlling human behaviour through legislation.
I do believe the suffering of families in the United States ranks right up there with those who lose children in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Gaza, all over Africa and elsewhere. It is fashionable to support our troops. Our president got a Nobel Peace Prize he didn’t deserve. I support keeping our troops out of harms way. I support every attempt at diplomatic solutions before sending a single soldier into the fray. My personal solution is to practice a form of personal responsibility and to practice loving-kindness for all living beings. My greatest contributions to society so far are my daughters who are vegetarian, practice recycling and will save the life of insects that find there way into our home.
Yep, that is what I am doing or not doing about the pointless death of people in Conn. I am trying to do what I can to take personal responsibility about how I behave. And I am trying hard not to self-righteously hold the rest of you in disdain. I am inclined to do that with people who do not agree with me, but with practice I can act my way into better thinking.
lawdisorder.blog 