America is a powder keg awaiting just the right “strike of a match.â€
Our President lives in a large white house surrounded by tall fencing, with armed missiles and men with machine guns. Certain members of Congress and our Supreme Court justices have bodyguards 24/7 and travel in armored vehicles. Mayors and city council Presidents in many large cities do, too. At work and at home.
Many states - including my own - have laws permitting armed citizens with no requirements for training on how to use their usually concealed-carry sidearms. Bars allow customers to linger till closing with no thought of the killer combination of alcohol and guns.
It’s commonly believed that more than half the homes in this nation have one or more guns inside. In the West, it’s likely much more than half.
Children arm themselves and kill each other so often it doesn’t always make the national news. Their classrooms are fat targets. Churches, too.
Last week’s attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband by a nutcase with a hammer was far more than just two adult men in a struggle for survival. It was a full-on testament to the undercurrent of violence in our society. In our “entertainment.†In our video games. In our streets. In our schools. In our churches. In our politics.
It was testament to our acceptance of that violence and of the obvious failure of us as a society to address and conquer it.
The plain fact is, if we don’t recognize we are a broken society in need of repair, we could lose our democracy - our republic - and succumb to the uncontrolled violence that would result.
When I was a kid, I had a paper route in a small Oregon town. A route that extended into the forest on the edge of that town. I walked that route daily and got home after dark. Now, all these years later, I would not retrace those many steps. I would not have the sense of youthful, taken-for-granted, small town “security†in doing it.
In a week, we’ll ending the angriest, most contentious and unnecessarily in-your-face political campaign I have ever witnessed. Vile threats. Angry repudiation. Taunts and personal confrontations. Debates - many debates - some where qualified candidates would not participate because of perceived dangers posed by people whose names never should have been on a printed ballot.
Some months ago, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy decided to “anoint †himself “Speaker of the House In-Waiting.†At a public event, he mused accepting the Speaker’s gavel from Pelosi “without hitting her with it.†Rude. Crude. Contemptuous. Dangerous words.
The seemingly endless “fuel†for our society of hate and anger is everywhere. Leaders - people who obviously should know better - spout violent, verbal B.S. at will. Others who hear the dangerous words note there seems to be no backlash - no societal revulsion - so they repeat the slime and, pretty soon, we’ve adjusted - allowed ourselves to “accept†such language and the accompanying behavior.
Somehow - somewhere - someone or many “someone’s†have to lance this boil of vitriol and anger. We’ve got to end the threats - real and perceived - to the underpinnings of society.
It must STOP!. It MUST!
If we continue to accept our current national rage in nearly any venue, our freedoms will have to be defended in the streets. By us. With weapons.
Paul Pelosi faced a someone with a hammer. That attack, by someone with mental problems, is more than just the violation of one family’s zone of personal safety. More than a rupture of the comfort of someone’s home.
It was a warning that no place is safe. No place is “off limits†to someone filled with anger. There is no sanctity of safety even in the bosom of our family.
This time it was a townhouse in San Francisco. Where will it be next? Where?