[Note: I wrote this post shortly after a tragedy. The press (as is their wont) went into rut, dry humping everything in site about gun control. I decided to leave this post in cold storage lest it inflame passions in the immediacy of the moment. Now, months later, I am in haste to publish it before the next black swan event. The press is desperate to further their narrative in the wake of their pathetically failed effort called Impeachment Part II: This Time We’ve Got Him. I hope to squeeze it in now, before they find another reason to go berserk.]
I’ve been off grid. Meanwhile, the media has been shoving stupid right up the zeitgeist of whomever hasn’t got something better to do. Those poor bastards!
Recently, a shithead shot some people. I was alerted to the sad event when someone (a person I deeply respect) told me about it. Then he launched the pre-programmed political attack that always lies in wait. I personally should have less freedom because an asshole who is not me shot people.
I pointed out this bullshit can’t be pinned on me. Also, murder is super illegal and evil has been around forever. He’d already skipped a groove and now was assigning blame to Trump. That’s a relief because five minutes earlier it was me and “people like me”.
Phrases such as “the problem is people like you” are dangerous. That kind of thinking gets out of hand. It’s best to stick with phrases like “nice weather we’re having”. Certainly nobody in the conversation (including me) was a mass killer. Also, “people like me” could mean a lot of things (though I doubt he was worried about blogging bearded boat builders).
To mollify him, I said that I’ve no guns left. The tragic canoe accident rendered me helpless as a puppy. Unfortunately, I foolishly engaged. I own a woodchipper. In light of the movie Fargo, should we have common sense woodchipper control?
This caused another round of “mass shootings (and all miseries anywhere) are caused by Trump”. I offered an alternate explanation; life sucks and sometimes bad things happen.
He complained I wasn’t taking his concerns seriously. So, with seriousness, I said free will was the issue. It’s a conundrum of sentience for which there is no solution. Evil and good reside in the heart of man. No rules can force an angel from the raw material of human.
He seemed surprised I refused to blame myself (or people like me) for this (or any) murder. I kindly mentioned I wasn’t blaming him for mass murders. Perhaps he could extend the same courtesy?
No luck. He was already going off on how “this never happened before”. I hate that one. This magic Utopian moment of peace is… when? Before Trump was elected? Before FOX ate CNN’s breakfast? During the Cold War? Before breech loading small arms?
There’s no time when mass murders didn’t happen. Often (but not always) they were group affairs; under the banner of a king, at the behest of a chieftain, delivered by pirates, inflicted by gangs, or possibly just because Medieval nobles wanted to fuck with the neighboring Duke by burning one of his peasant villages to the ground. But in 2019, the real answer is “bad shit seemingly didn’t happen before I spent all this time marinating in media about bad shit”.
“Before time” is an insidious bit of propaganda. Compare imperfect reality to an imagined Utopia and you’ll feel screwed; which is a feature not a bug. Media inserts into otherwise sane minds the notion that we can return to a before time that’s super awesome. The real past had tuberculosis, constant war, and mass homicide. Lots of it! The other side of the coin is the socialist’s favorite; the magic future. As soon as they control everything, free shit will come to us all, an endless supply of healthcare will make us fit, and the toilets will never clog. The real future isn’t Utopia. In the real future shit costs money, cancer kills, and toilets clog.
Propaganda requires nobody compare events to realistic situations. Reality is complex; with pros and cons to everything. Propaganda ignores 5000 years of history. It means you can hear about murderers in 2019 and think “this never happened before”.
He reluctantly conceded that humans have been killing humans for a long time but I couldn’t convince him 2019 is relatively safe. He was chatting on the phone while watching TV in air conditioning. He’s never fired a gun or been fired at by one. He’s never gone hungry. Huns have not stormed across his yard. The neighboring villagers won’t set fire to his garage. Is that not proof his world is relatively peaceful? A lifetime without one punch to the head and he pines for what… a time before mass murder? Anyone from Genghis Khan to Jack The Ripper to Al Capone to Charles Manson to Jim Jones has killed en masse. They’ve killed with everything; horses, knives, Tommy Guns, more knives, and even kool aid. Every victim was a tragedy. The Utopia trap: imagine a world without murder and then bitch because it’s not real. Is a tragedy only important if it’s on CNN?
This last part slowed him… but only a little.
I’d made a mistake mentioning morality as timeless. CNN teaches all morality is new and intertwined with politics and about making sure those deplorables in flyover country obey. Almost like a nervous twitch, he hit repeat on his internal audio drive and it started again. (That’s a bad sign. If you’ve got an opinion but involuntarily repeat the same phrases when encountering contradictory views; rethink your premises.)
The third time he argued I should have less freedom because someone else couldn’t handle it, I tried a different approach: the “walk in my shoes” argument. Since he says it’s my fault and I bear responsibility maybe it’s his fault and he bears responsibility too? This got his attention. (CNN never suggests CNN viewers are responsible for bad events. It’s necessarily other people that are bad. CNN viewers are inherently awesome and need never change anything. They’re saintly. Only others must be… “corrected”.)
I continued, his sacrifice would atone for his incorrigible ways. He should start right today! There’d been a mass murder and he should start with admission of his own guilt (certainly he was as guilty of mass murder as me). Once he’d accepted his fallen state, he should welcome penance and hope for redemption. Not redemption for his behavior, of course, but for the behavior of the mass murderer. (Hadn’t he demanded the same of me?)
I like guns so when someone killed people he said I need to get rid of my guns. Lets put that shoe on his feet. When someone killed people it’s a mental health issue. When was the last time he went to a therapist? Why not? Isn’t he aware of the serious mental health situation in America today? He should personally and immediately address this public health epidemic. If guns locked in my safe caused murder a thousand miles away his failure to attend therapy caused a mental breakdown a thousand miles away.
Also, “people like him” just weren’t trying hard enough to make it right. Perhaps a sizable donation to the victims? A big donation. It should be as big an adjustment to him as me forgoing my guns… thousands at least. Cut a check until it hurts.
This bummed him out. Propaganda needs hooks to work. One is to believe you’re superior. I poked a hole in that. I just said we’re equally responsible for mass murder. Ouch! That trips up the next step which is catching a free ride to salvation while others are forced to obey. (Never consider the reverse.) I suggested things he needed to do right away. Sitting on the couch watching TV wasn’t one of my recommendations. CNN’s effect works best when the “correct” lifestyle is exactly how you’re already living.
I can see how it happens too. Such an attractive notion it must be. You’re already living “right” so there’s no need for self-improvement. Who doesn’t want to believe they’ve got it made? It’s addictive and I mean that in the true sense of “addictive”.
There was a bit of cognitive dissonance but not much. The fourth repeat was coming up so I excused myself. I had to oil my woodsplitter. (That’s not a euphemism. Get your head out of the gutter!)
Just for the record I don’t want comments that trash this guy. I respect him and I’m not making light of his situation. Nor did I want to blog disrespectfully. Propaganda really works. Propaganda works on everyone. It works even if you know it’s propaganda.
Also, it sucks. CNN doesn’t make him happy. It makes him pissed off. It searches the world to finds things that will annoy him. It dangles these things on the screen saying “doesn’t this suck, aren’t you angry?” It angers him, because it was intended to.
Y’all have someone like that in your world too. Or maybe you’re walking that path yourself. Good luck. Turn off the TV and go fishing. As for the guy I respect, I’ll always be there for him. I’ll welcome him back if he courageously breaks the spell. I can take a quarterly bitching out from a CNN Meat TIVO as I pray for his recovery. But that is all I can do. You can’t free people from a cage in their mind.
As usual, the Babylon Bee explains the whole thing. (Click link for the whole thing.)
Study Shows Leading Cause Of Gun Violence Is Those You Disagree With Politically:
An exhaustive new study from the CDC reveals that the leading cause of gun violence in America is your political opponents. Researchers looked at a number of potential causes of gun violence such as mental health, family situation, cultural shifts, gun laws, rap music, videogames, sugar consumption, and the actual gunman, but by and large, the most prominent cause of gun violence was what most already suspected. The fault lies with those who you disagree with politically.
