“Having seen the people of all other nations bowed down to the earth under the wars and prodigalities of their rulers, I have cherished their opposites, peace, economy, and riddance of public debt, believing that these were the high road to public as well as private prosperity and happiness.”
Thomas Jefferson
America was created in violence. That’s known as the War of Independence. Most of its land was seized through violence by killing and displacing Natives east and west of the Mississippi. The U.S. made treaties and then promptly broke them.
620,000 Americans died in a Civil War over slavery and racism. 644,000 have died in all other conflicts. The U.S. maintains 900 military bases in 130 countries. It has 17 security agencies. The U.S. has warred in 222 of its 239 years. Since 1776, the U.S. has only been at peace for 20 years.
By the Second Amendment, Americans have a constitutional right to bear arms.
This week in Texas, in a small place not far from the Alamo, the symbol of Texan Independence, 26 people who walked this Great Circle were murdered in church while making peace with each other and loving their Creator. The quick became dead in the time it takes to pray.
There’s a gun store and shooting range chain called the Alamo. You can buy a Colt produced version of a Gatling Gun on a walnut carriage for $75,000. A 30 caliber machine gun on a tripod for $11,000. There is a wall full of AR-15 and boutique gunsmith versions of mayhem’s most produced automatic rifle, the AK-47.
America’s President says it was a good thing that the man who neutralized the shooter had a rifle in his truck. This isn’t a guns situation,” Trump said. “This is a mental health problem at the highest level. It’s a very, very sad event.”
The violence that Americans perpetuate against each other and the world is a mental health problem at the highest level. It’s insanity. It’s the war of all against all. I want your stuff. You’re not taking mine. Don’t tell me what to do. I am free. Independent.
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
There is no house that is not divided. Life is tragedy (check out Genesis for a good metaphorical description) with a bit of transcendent joy thrown in to make it bearable.
America’s history is no bloodier than other polities and in many cases less so. Trails of Tears for French Canadians forced to flee to Louisiana, or perhaps the beheaded corpses on the long flight from Armenia, or the bloody French Revolution, maybe? They made our fight against the Brits seem tame.
Speech in Canada is now *compelled*, but then it never was free there – a problem for the nice, nice Canadians, who want to have your cake and eat it, too.
Or perhaps you’d prefer to have been born in Russia?
Name even one country you think is freer, or getting that way. And please explain why so many continue to flood our shores?