Unknown Unknowns

Here we are yet again.

Another nut with a gun and score to settle.

Another mass shooting, more dead Americans.

Another journalism feeding frenzy.

And social media has again gone mad with rage and rumor and accusations of blame like enraged monkeys with fangs bared flinging fistfuls of shit at each other.

Yesterday, I cautioned my audience:

Facebook: You'll note that at the moment the ONLY thing you know for certain is that the shooting is proof positive of whatever political or religious position you hold, no matter who you are or what that position might be. And tomorrow when the facts begin to emerge, a whole bunch of people are going to look either stupid for what they've said today or they're going to bull it out and look like assholes - or both.

 

Frankly,  I don't think I'm out of line to say I Told You So.

It's now been a bit more than a day since a nut with a gun barricaded himself inside a Colorado Planned Parenthood clinic and started shooting people.

Here's what you actually know as I write this: Nothing.

Here's what you actually know about the shooter today: Nothing.

Here's what you actually know about his motivation: Nothing.

Here’s what you actually know about his political and religious positions: Nothing.

In fact, you don’t even actually know if Planned Parenthood was his intended target, or just a target of opportunity.

And yet, exactly as I said, despite the fact that you actually know nothing, most of you are firmly convinced that this guy is proof positive of whatever political position you hold, Left or Right or something on the howling libertarian fringe.

 

 

Whoever this guy is, whatever his motivation, whatever his mental state, whatever his political position, whatever his target, the only thing anybody knows for certain is that he represents whatever political, religious, and social point they hold dear.

 

Shooter, terrorist, madman, murderer, hero, whatever you choose to call him, his ultimate utility to our society is as gleeful confirmation of our own beliefs and as a condemnation of those we oppose.

 

While the shooter was still barricaded in Planned Parenthood, actor and raging conservative extraordinaire Adam Baldwin told me that the shooter was a transgendered leftist member of the Marxist "Socialist Workers Front." So AH HAH, in your face liberal scum!

As proof of his position, Baldwin linked to a website called The Gateway Pundit, a rightwing political blog run by a member of the Tea Party.  The Gateway Pundit published what it alleged to be court and voter records which showed the shooter to be female, despite rather obvious male characteristics in the attached booking photo with the caption, “That’s weird.” 

The obvious implication being the shooter was the T in LGBT, and therefore a “lefty” since by definition in Adam Baldwin’s mind all Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered people are ipso facto liberals.

The Pundit post ended with “[the shooter] also lists his party as UAF” – though the article provides no source or proof of this affiliation other than a vague reference to “voter records.”

UAF?

Baldwin helpfully broke out “UAF” to mean “Socialist Workers Front.”

Other sites gleefully latched onto this supposed “fact” and ran with it, identifying “UAF” as the political movement “Unite Against Fascism” which some allege to be a Marxist leaning movement.

 

 

Only one problem, in the Colorado voter registration system “UAF” is a designation meaning “unaffiliated” or “independent” and Unite Against Fascism is a British fringe political party that is neither active in Colorado nor does it have a designator in that state’s voter registration system.

As of this morning, it appears today Baldwin deleted his original tweet – at least I can’t access it despite being able to see all his other messages on Twitter.

The Gateway Pundit stands by its post – as one would expect from a source that crows about its award for “Breitbart Accuracy in Journalism.”

Baldwin’s partisan confirmation bias and public rumor mongering sets the tone for this entire miserable affair (though to be honest, given his track record on Twitter, I’m somewhat surprised at his mild tone when talking to me – especially since the conversation began with me calling him a “dimwitted goon,” which in retrospect makes me somewhat of an ass).

Planned Parenthood meanwhile claims the shooter was mumbling about “no more baby parts” and was violently opposed to abortion:

 

But again, what you’re looking at here is opinion.

Somebody else said the shooter was opposed to abortion, the shooter didn’t say that.

And his alleged statement about “baby parts” is as yet unconfirmed and at best hearsay.

Donald Trump called the shooter “a maniac.”

President Obama said, “Enough is enough!”

Mike Huckabee called it a case of “domestic terrorism.”

Carly Fiorina assumes the mantle of martyrdom and blames “Leftwing Tactics” for the blowback she’s  facing over her previous comments supporting widely debunked Planned Parenthood videos.

Pro-Life LifeNews condemned Hillary Clinton for “exploiting” the shooting after Clinton issued a series of comments on Twitter in support of Planned Parenthood. LifeNews then predictably goes on to exploit the shooting in order to push their pro-life agenda.

Conservative media site The Daily Caller angrily denounced the liberal media for “rushing to blame Christians, Republicans for Planned Parenthood Shooting.”

Progressive media site Vocativ angrily denounced the conservative media while “Hundreds Cheer Planned Parenthood Rampage As GOP Stays Silent.”

 

 

Glen Beck’s The Blaze with grim predictability managed to tie Clinton, the shooting, abortion, and Black Lives Matter all up together and dismounted in triumph apparently defending the lives of black children which the same outfit commonly refers to as “thugs” and against which its readers loudly feel they need to be armed.

 

 

The Shooter’s neighbors called him weird and angry and disturbed.

He might have been in trouble with the law once or twice, or more, much more. He might have abused animals.

The word “loner” is being bandied about on both sides of the political divide,  often with a raised eyebrow and a knowing look. Ah, of course, a disturbed loner with mental problems. Sure. Sure.

 

The word “terrorism” has been thrown out on both sides of the political divide, though who the actual terrorist is when a bearded lunatic kills a cop while shooting up a controversial medical facility is open to interpretation.

 

 

A number of people have noted that despite killing a cop and actively shooting at the police for five hours, the white shooter was calmly taken  into custody and walked out of the building apparently uninjured.  And somehow, so far, he hasn’t died in custody. And what exactly  does that say about our society in light of other recent events where people of color weren’t nearly so lucky – despite, you know, not having killed a cop.

 

 

And of course, there’s the perennial American Gun Argument:

 

 

In the end, I suppose when it all shakes out it’s possible that the shooter will turn out to be an introverted transgendered pro-life Tea-Party Marxist Muslim extremist, but at the moment what you actually know about him (or her) is nothing.

And yet, exactly as I said, despite the fact that you actually know nothing, most of you are firmly convinced that this guy is proof positive of whatever political position you hold, Left or Right or somewhere out on the howling fringe.

 

You know, when I was growing up, it was the atom bomb.

 

We were sure, sooner or later, the world would end in nuclear fire. We built shelters we knew would be no use. We built great engines of war which we hoped would defend us from our enemies but which we secretly knew would only ensure no shred of civilization survived the holocaust – we even had a name for it, we called it MAD. We signed treaties and prayed to the gods and fearfully watched the skies for the first sign of the falling warheads.

Somehow, by luck mostly, we survived.

Somehow, the Doomsday Clock was reset, the hands moved away from midnight instead of ticking down to our doom.

Now, when the learned men speak of that dark time, they sigh and say, well, you know, civilization dodged the bullet.

And yet, looking back, I wonder.

I wonder if nuclear Armageddon was half the threat to civilization the internet and the 24-hour news cycle are.

Sooner or later, if we are to survive, we human beings of the Information Age are either going to have to evolve filters and critical thinking skills, both mentally and technologically, as a society or watch our civilization fall into utter chaos and ruin around us.

As the man said, some people just want to watch the world burn.

The simple obvious truth of the matter is that we, most of us, are not yet equipped to deal with the deluge of information which floods our senses every single day. Our social systems, our mental filters, our sense of propriety, our ability to judge truth and falsehood, right and wrong, are all overwhelmed. All of our very worst traits, confirmation bias, fear, hate, bigotry, ignorance, stupidity, selfishness are exaggerated and amplified and all of our best traits, love, understanding, empathy, patience, courage, are lost in the fire.

Like frightened chimps we bare our fangs, screeching in rage, and fling shit at each other.

Today, right now, whoever this guy is, whatever his motivation, whatever his mental state, whatever his political position, whatever his target, the only thing anybody knows for certain is he represents whatever political, religious, and social point they hold dear.

And that, that  right there, is the whole damned problem.

Gravity

On a Virginia bluff overlooking the Potomac there stands a flagpole.

It is, truly, a monument to a terrible moment in American history.

The plaque on its pedestal reads:

Many great American soldiers, both of the North and South, died at this spot. The casualties were so great that the water would turn red and thus became known as ‘The River of Blood.’

Imagine that.

Imagine that horrifying scene.

Imagine the thunder of the cannon, the crack of the rifles, the smoke, the screams of dying men and maimed horses. Imagine the smell, rot and putrefaction, death, shit, iron, and wet raw lamb. Imagine the casualties, so great, so many, they literally stained the wide Potomac itself crimson with the blood of patriots.

Imagine.

 

Only one problem: it never happened.

 

Imagine, because that’s where this battle exists – solely within imagination.

There was no battle.

There were no casualties.

There was no bloody river.

The Potomac was never known as The River of Blood, not during the Civil War, not now.

Oh the flag is real enough, but the story is as phony as Ben Carson’s West Point scholarship.

The guy who owns the place and erected that historic marker ... just made it all up to improve his property values.

That guy?

That guy is, of course, Donald J. Trump.

In 2009, Trump bought a rundown golf course on Lowes Island, Virginia. He chopped down an actual historic forest to improve the view, pumped millions into renovations, designated his new property an ersatz historical site, and opened his doors to the well heeled suckers.

Since then, Trump has been told repeatedly, publicly and in private, by some of the most prominent experts in American history that he is completely and utterly wrong about his so-called River of Blood.

Unsurprisingly, Trump refuses to budge or admit error.

In point of fact, Trump believes he knows more about Civil War history than the people who study, excavate, preserve, and teach it as their profession.

According to the New York Times, Trump quipped, “How would they know that?” when told historians had called his plaque a fiction. “Were they there?”

Despite a complete lack of historical evidence, Trump justifies his version of American history by saying, “That was a prime site for river crossings. So, if people are crossing the river, and you happen to be in a civil war, I would say that people were shot, a lot of them.”

How would scientists know that?

Were they there?

I would say.

My opinion is as good as the professionals.

Now, where have you heard that before?

That faulty thinking, that flawed logic, that is the inevitable result of unchecked Creationism.

This is what happens when unsubstantiated made-up fictions are substituted for actual scientific methods and the ramblings of amateurs and fortune-tellers are given equal or greater weight than that of professionals.

False reality.

So?

So what? So what if some daffy self-aggrandizing billionaire made up some fake history, right? Who’s he hurting?

So what if a significant fraction of America discounts the sum total of science and history for a fictitious world where Jesus walked with dinosaurs and the Earth is 6000 years old? So? Who are they hurting?

Glad you asked.

Trump insists he saw video and news reports of Muslims celebrating in the streets of New Jersey the day the towers fell.

This did not happen.

Did. Not. Happen.

Despite the fact that Trump’s version of reality has again been soundly and thoroughly debunked and absolutely no video or validated news or police report  whatsoever can be found of any such thing (and in fact, the only confirmed reports of people celebrating are parties of non-Muslims, white and black, Americans, who gathered on rooftops to watch the spectacle from across the river before the towers collapsed and the true extent of the horror was fully realized), Trump continues to insist that his recall of history is correct.

Just as he insists his version of a Civil War battle that never happened is correct.

And then yesterday, Trump doubled down.

He now claims he personally witnessed with his own eyes, from the windows of his own Manhattan apartment, more than 80 people jumping to their deaths from the Twin Towers before the collapse – despite the fact that his apartment in Trump Tower is more than four miles away and it would have been utterly impossible for him to have seen any such thing.

This is a pattern with Donald Trump.

He plays fast and loose with reality on a daily basis.

Now, either Trump believes what he's saying or he's exaggerating for effect knowing his supporters don't really care either way because they have been conditioned to believe whatever the loud wild-haired guy under the tent is saying, no matter how ridiculous so long as he waves the bible and stands pat on his version of reality.

Either way, by accident or with malice aforethought, the bottom line here is that Donald Trump is not operating in a reality based framework.

And neither are those cheering him.

 

And that's the problem with our Republic.

 

That, right there, that Creationist I Don't Care What The Facts Say, History Is Whatever I Believe mindset.

When you have a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, the government is only as good as the people.

When the people deliberately choose ignorance and fear and make-believe, you get a government that does as well. Worse, you then get a government who can only thrive on those very things and therefore must seek to instill them in the population in a vicious feedback loop.

Phony history and make-believe science don’t build starships.

Creationist thinking won’t “make America great again.”

Yesterday in Wasilla I saw a truck in the parking lot of a local grocery store which brought it all into focus for me.  It was a mammoth machine, huge tires, extended cab, all the trimmings. NRA sticker on the window. Pro-life. Trump: Make America Great Again. Old scowling white guy with a gun on his hip emerged from the store, squinted at me suspiciously, and climbed behind the wheel.

And on the tailgate, a mural. This one:

Everything I need to know about Islam, I learned on 9-11.

You know, I wonder, somewhere in Iraq if there is a pinch-faced angry member of the Islamic State with a mural on the back of his truck which shows Bagdad blown to hell and a trite little sound-bite which reads,  “Everything I need to know about Christianity, I learned when America blew up my country despite the fact that we had no weapons of mass destruction and nothing to do with 9-11 because they couldn’t tell the difference between Iraqis and Saudis.”

No?

Perhaps not. Not too many people have the means, money, or time to paint murals on their vehicles in Iraq these days.

 

What?

What’s that?

That Iraqi guy, he shouldn’t judge all Christians, all Americans, based on the actions of an insane few? He shouldn’t go around blowing people up and chopping off heads and hating everybody in the West because certain Christians blew up his country?

Interesting, I’ll have to think about that.

 

Everything I need to know about Islam, I learned on 9-11.

You ever wonder if maybe that’s the whole problem?

Everything I need to know about Islam, I learned on 9-11? Really? Because I have to say, personally, I’ve learned one hell of a lot I didn’t know about Islam in the years since 9-11. I learned that a lot of what I’d been told, what I thought I knew, was wrong, or at best incomplete.

And maybe, just maybe, that was at least part of the problem.

I learned that just like Christians, Muslims are each and every one different – and just like Christians, it’s what you do with your religion that matters.

Perhaps for me, the most profound lesson came when I led a Navy boarding team onto a hostile Iraqi ship in the Northern Arabian Gulf. They were certainly smugglers, perhaps pirates, perhaps even spies for Saddam – though in hindsight, the latter is unlikely. We rounded up the crew, cutthroats and criminals, dangerous men, one and all.  I found the master in the ship’s pilothouse and the man was … fierce.  He was tall, well over six feet, lean like a greyhound as if he was made from wire and sun dried leather, huge finely kept black beard and a moustache that for Iraqis is a thing of vast pride, giant hooked nose like the blade of an axe, and the most piercing and intense black eyes I have ever seen.  Give this man a brace of pistols and a scimitar of Damascus steel and he would have been at home in the midst of the Barbary Wars. 

And he was hugely, massively, angry to be facing an American military officer on his own bridge, the fury radiated from him in palpable waves.

He was the enemy, the boogeyman, I expected him to fight, to ram his ship into mine, to … I dunno, pull out a brace of pistols and a scimitar of Damascus steel and scream Allah Akbar.

Instead, he offered me coffee.

And we spent the next hour talking about our children, my son, his daughters and how he hoped they would grow up like western women, proud and sure of themselves and beholden to no man, no religion, no dictator. He didn’t hate America, he had a brother in Chicago. He had been horrified by 9-11. He didn’t hate me, he didn’t hate my country. He hated war and death and injustice and being boarded by a foreign power in his own waters.

The things I truly need to know about Islam, and my own country, the most important things, I’ve learned in the decade since 9-11.

I’ve often wondered what happened to that old pirate, if he survived the war, if his daughters did, and where they might be today.

 

Listen to me, if you want a better country, a better world, then you have to to be better citizens.

 

When you put people who don’t believe in reality into power, you get government that is likewise deluded.

You get moonbeams and magic fairy dust and arbitrary laws based on arbitrary interpretations of somebody’s arbitrary religion.

You get Drill, Baby, Drill while the seas rise and the crops wither and the super hurricanes smash our coasts into sodden rubble.

You get voodoo economics based on the shitty selfish ideas of some drug-addled second-rate science-fiction author whose own bullshit didn’t even work for her and thirty years later you’ll still be waiting for the full effects of those ridiculous juju magics to trickle down while the world falls to shit around you.

You get racism and misogyny and homophobia and bigotry writ large. You get walls and barbed wire and machine guns and broken glass. You get fear and hate, all based on something that never happened. And you will get war, against the wrong people, in the wrong country, for the wrong reasons and thousands of your children will die or come home maimed and you’ll find that you’ve made the world a thousand times worse and now you’re facing yet another war as a result – the latest conflict in an endless string that stretches back as far as you can remember.

If you put people like Trump into power, you get many things.

But greatness is not one of them.

 

 

---

Footnote: You’re wondering about the title?

Well, see, the thing about gravity? It’ll kill you whether you believe in it or not.

The Price of Civilization

Here we are yet again.

Terror, death, chaos.

Already the drums are sounding, the trumpets call us to arms.

War is coming yet again.

But … well, it’s not the war I wonder about, it’s what comes after.

In a comment on my Facebook page, somebody asked how this could happen. Paris. How could this happen and nobody see it coming? It seems as if terrorism sprouts like mushrooms, the commenter puzzled, one minute the world is normal, and the next BOOM!

Indeed, terrorism is like that. Boom. Everything is normal, then boom.

But it only seems that way.

You see, terrorism like this doesn't just pop up like mushrooms.

It grows, inch by inch, day by day, cell by cell, recruit by recruit. Most of the time it grows right out in the sunlight, ignored - not unnoticed, ignored. Just as it was here in the US, because it's over there, somewhere, in some Third World shithole and we just don't care so long as it's not us.

And in this case it's been doing exactly that in Syria and Iraq and North Africa for years now.

It's not just us, this blithe happy ignorance. It happens all over the world and has for as long as there has been civilization. In recent memory, Russia, France, Spain, the UK, Northern Ireland, Italy, Somalia, and the Middle East. It is the nature of human beings to argue and squabble and dismiss until it's too late. Climate change, pollution, failing economy, poverty, disease, collapse, war, it's all the same.

Terrorism? It comes from chaos. From conflict and exploitation, from endless ruin and crushing poverty and bleak desperation. It comes from religion and ideology run mad.

You want to know why someone would strap an explosive belt to themselves and run into a crowd?

I’ll tell you.

It’s not complicated, it’s because they have literally nothing better to do, that's why.

It’s because the vague promise of some glorious afterlife is better than anything else in their lives.

It is absolutely no different, no different, from those who would let the world burn because they believe their own prophet is coming soon to rapture them away to some eternal bliss while the rest of us roast in eternal torment. The only difference is in degree.

We created this. Paris. Yes we did.

What’s that?

Oh, you’re offended, are you? Offended that I say it’s our own fault. That we created this. You’re offended. Got your red, white, and blue panties in a bunch? How dare I? How dare I?

Yes? That’s it, isn’t it?

Tell you what, fuck off. Shove your reflexive self-righteousness patriotic jingoism right up your ass.

 

If you want to do something about terrorism, actually do something about terrorism, then you start by being honest with yourself.

 

We created this.

Terrorism, the kind we face today? It comes from the fact that we, us, we keep blowing up civilization and leaving nothing but death and ruin in our wake. Terrorists are like cockroaches, they thrive on chaos and destruction and we're damned good at creating that chaos. I know, I spent most of my life in the business of war.

We created this.

Yes we did. We created the conditions for it to grow. To incubate, ignored over there, in the chaos we created.

Thirty years ago we denounced the Soviets for destroying Afghanistan and leaving nothing but ruins, a destroyed civilization, chaos. But we, we Americans, we were right in there, weren't we? Funding and fueling the Mujahedeen - creating our own enemies, just as the Romans did 2000 years ago. We could have done something about it, sure. We could have rebuilt that civilization after the Soviet Union pulled out. We could have made the Mujahedeen our friends. We could have. But it would have cost us money. Our money. Lots of money, vast, vast sums of it. It would have taken decades of sustained commitment. It would have taken effort.

And so, instead we left. Fuck it. Not our problem. Enjoy your freedom, Towelheads.

And the Mujahedeen became what?

The "freedom fighters" we trained, we equipped, we left behind, became what?

They became the Taliban.

They became Al Qaida.

They became the seeds of our own destruction.

And we learned nothing.

Then the same amoral sons of bitches who diddled in Afghanistan without regard to the consequences took us into Iraq.

And we reduced Iraq to lawless ruin.

Oh, we won the war, I know, I was there. We won the war, sure we did and they cheered us in the streets just as our leaders told us they would.

And then?

And then?

Then it all went sideways. It all fell apart. It all fell apart because we are damned good at destroying nations, not so good at building them.

Destruction is easy, creation is the hard part.

We had no plan. We didn’t care enough to have a plan, to see it through, to govern what we’d won, to rebuild the nation we’d destroyed, to beat swords into plowshares, to earn the respect and keep the friendship of the people we’d supposedly freed.  We let it fall apart. And then, like Vietnam four decades before, we walked away. See yah, have fun with your freedom!

We let Syria disintegrate and we still can't make up our minds who to back, the evil dictator who hates us, or the Islamic state who hates us, or the Russians who we hate. And Syria is just one of a dozen places currently falling apart.

And so, war, destruction, desperation. Chaos. The perfect breeding ground for terrorism.

Meanwhile, right here in our own country, a bunch of religious lunatics who pray to their small and mean god every single day for their own idiotic rapture, make it worse by throwing gasoline on the fire at every turn in their unending obsession with the end of the world. War, war, war, they just can’t get enough in the name of their religion of love and peace.

We haven't cleaned up the last mess and they want more war, more chaos, want to destroy yet another country. They gleefully point to the horror they helped make and proclaim it a sign from upon high, glory glory hallelujah, the End Times are come. Praise Jesus!

Well, it looks as if their miserable god has finally answered their prayers and they'll get their wish. War. Again. Because now we have no choice.

And I will bet you whatever sum of money you like, because I used to do this for a living, that right now the war machine is spinning up. The sabers are rattling, the ships are preparing to sail, the bombers are fueling up, and the trumpets are sounding To Arms, To Arms!  As they must for the barbarians are at the gate and now? Now we have no choices at all.

But...

But what comes after?

We’ll rush in, like the fools we are, heedless yet again. Our own children will march off to war to the sounds of cheering crowds and they’ll come home in bags, hidden away from public view. We’ll speak the solemn words, sacrifice, patriotism, duty, honor, courage. We’ll bomb another country to ruin, kill thousands, millions. Oh, we’ll win the war, don’t you fear, of course we will, we always do. We’re good at it.

But…

But meanwhile, what comes after?

What’s the plan this time?

What have we learned? What have we learned from all those lives? From all that blood? From all that destruction?

What have we learned from terror?

Terrorism grows like bacteria in warm agar, among the destruction and ruin of war. Terrorism grows in the gaps between civilization. And so what is the plan for after the war? After we’ve blown up the world yet again?

What comes after?

It does you no good to kill cockroaches if you don’t clean up the rot and mess and the filth they live on, if you leave chaos and darkness for them to breed in. More will always come in an unending tide.

So what’s the plan for after?

Paris was caused by Iraq. By Syria. By Afghanistan. By chaos and destruction and because the terrorists had nothing better, literally nothing better, to do with their miserable lives.

Unless we do something about that, then Paris isn’t the end, it’s just the beginning.

Veterans Day 2015

The […] novel sucked. Even when I liked [the author] I saw right through that Rah Rah Military is Awesome bullshit.
  - Facebook Comment

 

Yesterday, I met a man who despised me.

He called me fascist, murderer, and a dumb blunt tool.

I didn’t take it personally – though a younger me might have.

I didn’t meet him in the flesh, like most of my social interactions these days I encountered him online. He surfaced on a well known author’s Facebook page during a conversation regarding a certain well known classic science fiction novel.

Now, it doesn’t matter which author or which novel or exactly where the conversation took place – though I’m certain a number of folks reading this can figure it out in short order.  The conversation and the novel which inspired it aren’t relevant to this essay, other than as a starting point. Suffice it to say the novel and the reputation of its author is such that fully six decades after it was written it still has the unerring ability to generate violent conflict and powerful emotions. Mention it in any conversation about government and/or military service and the sparks will fly.

It’s one of those books you either love or hate.

Very few who are familiar with the work find middle ground between those poles – including those who haven’t actually read it and are familiar with the writer and the novel only by second-hand heresy (yes, heresy, the book is nearly an article of faith to many) and a terrible Hollywood adaption.

It’s one of those stories where your opinion depends very much on your age and experience, and as such your opinion with regards to the story tends to change and temper over time.

To me, well, that’s what makes it a truly great work.

Love it, hate it, it is a coming of age story and it endures as a lightning rod, as a jumping off point for exploration of the human condition, of government, of service, of duty, of war and conflict, of why we fight and why we should – or should not.

I have read this novel many, many times.

I read it as a teenaged boy before I joined the military. 

I read it again at various points throughout my military career, as an enlisted man and as an officer – and in fact it is required reading for students at a number of military academies. I read it the day the author himself died, and raised a glass in his name, while stationed at a far distant outpost.

I’ve read it a number of times since I hung up my sword. I may, in fact, read it again today.

I don’t know that it influenced my decision to join up. I don’t know that it didn’t. The author, in this work and many others, certainly had some impact on my worldview. I do know that this novel did influence what kind of military man I ultimately became and that there were times, very difficult times, black days, moments when I didn’t know what to do next and lives depended on my decision, when I heard the words of its author whispering in my head, honor, courage, duty, ethics, morality, service above self, willingness to give one’s life in the cause of something greater – even and perhaps most especially when the cost is unjust and immoral and terrible.

The ideals of that book, and the veteran who wrote it, those ideals spoke to me in a very personal way.

And they still do.

As a writer of politics and military subjects, I encounter this book and discussions of its author often and I watch the resulting battles with some amusement. I’ve read hundreds of treatises on this book and its long dead author, detailed analyses from bloggers, columnists, best selling writers, noted scientists of various specialties, politicians, academics, and of course, military professionals.

All, every one, miss one fundamental thing.

And that is this: The reason six decades later this novel still generates love and hate and violent emotion is because the protagonist, a man very much like me, finds a home in the military.

War is his profession and he embraces it willingly and without regret.

 

And that, that right there, is the novel’s great sin.

 

That’s the criticism most often leveled at both the book and its author, they are pro war, pro military, and therefore somehow fascist and un-American.

To me this is like saying a fireman, one who runs towards the inferno, who is willing to brave the flames to save others, is somehow pro-arson.

There is no one who knows the terrible cost of war more than a veteran. There are few more anti-war than a combat veteran. Just as there is no one who knows the terrible toll of fire more than those who fight it. And yet, both still serve, because that is who they are.  

It’s okay in our society, at the moment, to love the soldier, to tell the story of war. But it must be done in a certain way. You see, it’s okay to write about war, to set novels among the conflagration and tell tales of glory and honor and sacrifice, so long as those who are caught up in its horror resent their own service. So long as they despise the conflict and the government and the utter ridiculous stupidity which sent them into the meat grinder. It’s okay to tell stories of war and conflict so long as the hero is serving only out of duty and will return to civilian life once the war ends – or die heroically, or tragically, or foolishly, depending on what kind of story you’re telling.

But to tell a story of those who serve when they don’t have to? To write of those who find a home in the military? That is a sin. Those people, you see, they’re the losers. Honor, courage, duty, ethics, the morality of war, service above self, willingness to give one’s life in trace to your country, well, these things are for suckers, wannabe fascists, murderers, dumb blunt tools with nothing better to do.

This is the difference between Full Metal Jacket and The Green Berets.

This, this right here, is the difference between The Forever War and Starship Troopers.

 

This is the difference between the man I met yesterday … and me.

 

Today we honor those who served in peace and in war.

We honor those who came of their own free will and those who came only because they were called.

We honor those who came of age in bloody conflict, those who like me, like the protagonist of that novel, found a life, who found ourselves, in the military. And we honor those who resented every goddamned miserable senseless minute of it.

Today wreaths will be laid. Flags will be raised to the truck and lowered to half-mast and there they’ll fly, cracking in the cold breeze, the symbol we fought and bled and died for, while below words of patriotism, duty, honor, courage, service, and sacrifice will be spoken.

The trumpets will sound their terrible call and the tears will flow – as they are down my face even as I write this.

Because, you see, I remember.

I remember those who trained and led me. I remember those I served alongside. I remember those I trained and led myself. I remember those men and women, every one of them, the good and the bad, the faithful and the faithless, the leaders and the followers, the admirable and the shitheads, those who came before me and those who came after, those who still live and serve and fight out there every day in the dark and dangerous corners of the world, those who have hung up their swords, and most of all I remember those who have given the last full measure – I remember them, each and every single one, each and every single day. 

They are always with me, because they are the people who made me what I am.

Perhaps we are nothing more than blunt instruments. Perhaps we are fools. Today I am disinclined to argue the point.

Perhaps we are. Because after the wreaths are laid, and the flags are lowered, and the trumpets sound their final mournful call, then the politicians will return to the same old divisions, the bailout bill, the election, the latest pork barrel project, or how the other party is a bunch of unpatriotic un-American bastards. Tomorrow they’ll remember us not at all – or at best, only as a way to further their own selfish agendas.

The talk show hosts will cry their crocodile tears, and wax self-righteous and angrily demand that their listeners honor veterans. They'll take people to task for not wearing an American Flag pin, or for not having a yellow ribbon on their cars, or for not serving in uniform - all the while hoping nobody calls them on their own service, of which, most have exactly none. And tomorrow, as always, they’ll forget all about us and go back to telling Americans to hate each other.

The Great Patriots, those Americans who think love of country is a contest and who wave the flag as if it were the cheap symbol of their favorite football team, are going to drink a lot of cheap beer and discount liquor and pontificate drunkenly at great length about how the country is going to hell in a hand-basket because of that son of a bitch in [insert: Congress, the White House, Wall Street, et cetera here] and how we should be doing better by our “Heroes.” All the while hoping nobody calls them on their own service, of which, most have exactly none. And tomorrow, they’ll nurse their sullen hung-over resentment and go back to fearing the men and women they honor today will knock on their door to take away their freedoms and liberties and guns.

Meanwhile today a lot of folks who don't think much about patriotism are going to go to parades and wave little flags and quietly give thanks for those who bought their freedom at such terrible cost. Some will stand ramrod straight even though many can barely stand at all, like me they limp, or they roll, bent but unbroken, they’ll place their hands over their hearts as the American flag passes, and in their eyes you can see horrible memories of Saipan and Iwo Jima, Normandy, the Rhine, the black Ardennes forest, The Chosin Reservoir, Khe Sanh, Tet, Al Basrah, Anbar, and Bagram. They won't talk about honoring veterans, they are veterans.

Today those with sons and daughters and husbands and wives in the service will raise a flag in their front yard, just as they do every day - and pray that those same loved ones get home alive and whole, just as they do every day.

Today those with sons and daughters and husbands and wives and mothers and fathers who have fallen in the service will visit graveyards, they'll bring fresh flowers, and fresh flags, and fresh tears.

Today, some just won’t give a good goddamn. They'll get a day off from work. They'll picnic, or party, or go boating, or hiking, or to the track. They'll paint the house, or do chores around the yard, they’ll haul trash to the dump if it's open or take the dog for a walk. Or maybe they won't, maybe today will be just like any other day. Kids still go to school, here in Alaska. Teachers still teach. Stores, restaurants, the mills and mines and rigs are still running. And it may be that these people most honor veterans, by simply going on with their lives, by living without having to remember the dead on some far distant battlefield, without having to worry about their security, without having to thank anybody.

And today, some will protest. Protest war, the military, the government. They'll use this day to burn the flag, they’ll take to Facebook and Twitter to call us fascists and murderers and dumb blunt tools. They’ll use this day to march and to demonstrate and it may be that these people are paying the highest compliment to veterans – even though that is the least of their intentions. Because, you see, it was veterans who bought them their right to despise us.

We are not heroes.

We are not heroes. Most of us anyway, we are simply people like any other, doing the best we can with what we have under difficult circumstance. We came when called and did our duty, each for our own reasons. You don’t have to understand why, just as you may not understand why a fireman would run into a burning building instead in the other direction. 

In our country, in a free society, the soldier should be no more revered than any other citizen.

We should respect the warrior, but we should never worship him.

There is no glory in war. It is a horrible, brutal business and make no mistake about it. We can wish it otherwise. We can rail against the utter stupidity and the phenomenal waste and the bloody obscenity of it all. We can declare and decry war’s terrible necessity and its terrible cost. Be that as it may, given human nature, for now war must often be done and our nation, our world, needs those who would fight, who would stand rough and ready to do violence in their name. It is a duty, a profession, a job, and a calling that must be done.

Perhaps in some distant future we will have put it behind us, perhaps we will have made war and the warrior long obsolete.  We can certainly hope that it shall be so. We can, and should, strive to make it so.

Perhaps some day we will set aside a day to honor the peacemakers and study war no more. Perhaps.

But I wouldn’t count on it.

 

I don’t know. I don’t particularly care.

 

You see, I didn’t do it for you.

I didn’t do it for you and you owe me nothing. Neither thanks nor pity.

I’ve said it before, I’ll likely say it again: If you want a better nation, you have to be better citizens. Me? I joined the military for myself. To prove something to myself. To be a better citizen.  

I joined for myself, but I stayed for them. For my comrades in arms, for those I served beside, I did it for them. I did it for all the things I found in that novel, honor, courage, duty, ethics, morality, service above self, willingness to give one’s life in the cause of something greater – even and perhaps most especially when the cost is unjust and immoral and terrible.

I did it because like the protagonist of that book, that is my sin, I found a life there among friends.

Yesterday I met a man who despised me.

But you know what? That, that right there, is what we were doing in the dark and dangerous corners of the world, defending his right to hold us in utter contempt.

Yesterday I met a man who despised me.

He called me and those like me fascist, murderer, dumb blunt tools.

I can live with that.

And I wear his contempt as a badge of honor.

Empty Gestures

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Bang Bang Crazy – Two in the Bush

So, another mass shooting.

How many is that this year? This month? This week?

You know, it sure does seems like…

 

Really? 

 

What’s the problem?

We’re only two lines in and already you’re rolling your eyes? Already you’ve got your hand up? You didn’t even let me get through the introduction.  How could you possibly have an objection already?

What’s that?

You have a problem with the phrasing? “Mass shootings,” you say? That’s the problem? Oh, I see. It’s like sex with Bill Clinton, it depends on how you define the words. Mass shootings.  It’s not as bad as it seems. It’s all media hype. Liberal hysteria. False Flags by the gun grabbers.

It’s really not that bad.

Why in most of the recent shootings only one or two people have died.

One. Maybe two.

Maybe three.

That’s not so bad. Right?

See, for a mass shooting you need four dead people.

That’s right. It’s got to be four dead victims, not three kids and then the gunman shoots himself. Not one dead and a dozen wounded and the cops kill the bad guy, no, Sir. For it to count you’ve got to have a pile of dead people. At least four of them, that’s the deal.

We’re talking penetration here, not oral gratification.

Four dead, minimum. Preferably more. And they’ve got to be Christians, see? Preferably good God-fearin’ white people. A bunch of unarmed black people killed by a rightwing racist in a church? Doesn’t count. A liberal US congresswoman and her staff and constituents? Doesn’t count. Bunch of people watching a Batman movie when they should have been home studying the Bible? Doesn’t count. School full of kindergarteners? Doesn’t count and they were probably all “crisis actors” anyway. When liberals talk about 30,000 dead each year from guns, well, most of those are singletons, one dumb kid shoots another dumb kid, suicides, black people in Chicago shooting other black people, losers, and like that. Accidents. Stuff happens. Those don’t count.

Gun violence, you see, is on the decline. That’s what they tell us – well, except in the giant gun-free death zone known as Chicago where black liberal thugs rape and murder each other on the streets pretty much 24 hours a day. But other than that, if you eliminate all cases that do not involve Radical Muslim Extremists shooting White Conservative Christians, gun violence is on the decline. Hardly ever happens.

And when it does, well, it’s crazy people who are to blame.

Last weekend, Jeb Bush explained during an interview on WHOTV’s The Insiders how mass shootings in the US are caused by mental illness:

“We can lessen it [mass shootings and gun violence]. And we need to look at: What are the common denominators of these very public mass murders where people then commit suicide?”

What are the common denominators?

What is the common denominator in “these very public mass murders?”

What’s the common denominator? Well, let’s do the math: September 1999, Fort Worth, Texas, a gunman killed six people during a prayer service, then he committed suicide. October 2002, it was the Washington DC Sniper, ten dead. August 2003, Chicago, a gunman locked six of his former coworkers in a conference room and shot them dead, then he killed himself.  November 2004, Birchwood, Wisconsin, a hunter got into an argument with a group of sportsmen over a trespassing issue, the hunter ended the argument by killing six and wounding two. March 2005, Brookfield, Wisconsin, a man walked into a church and shot seven people dead, praise the Lord. October 2006, Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, a disgruntled truck driver shot five Amish schoolgirls to death and wounded six others before taking his own life. April 2007, Virginia Tech, an angry former student set a record with the deadliest mass shooting in the US in recent years, he killed thirty-two people and wounded fifteen others. Go Team. August 2007, Delaware State University, three students were shot and killed execution style by a 28-year-old and two 15-year-old boys, a fourth student was shot and stabbed. December 2007, Omaha, Nebraska, a 20-year-old man killed nine people and wounded five others in a shopping mall.  A few days later,  on Christmas Eve, a woman and her boyfriend gunned down six members of her family in their house in Carnation, Washington. February 2008, Chicago, a gunman tied up and shot six women at a clothing store, five of them died. February 2008, DeKalb, Illinois, a man opened fire in a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University, he killed five students and wounded sixteen others.  September 2008, Alger, Washington, a mentally ill man who was released from jail one month earlier shot eight people, six died. December 2008, Covina, California, a man dressed up like Santa Claus killed nine people at a family Christmas party, then he set the house on fire and shot himself. March 2009, Alabama, a 28-year-old drove through several towns randomly shooting people, he managed to kill ten. March 2009, North Carolina, a heavily-armed gunman stormed into a nursing home and killed eight elderly residents and wounded two more before police killed him. March 2009, Santa Clara, California, six people were shot dead in an apartment building.  April 2009, Binghamton, New York, a man shot thirteen people to death in a bloody rampage at the town civic center. July 2009, Houston, Texas, six people were shot in a drive-by shooting at a community rally on the campus of Texas Southern University. November 2009, Fort Hood, Texas, a U.S. army major opened  fire on his fellows in the middle of a crowded processing center filled with troops preparing for deployment, he killed thirteen and wounded forty-two. January 2011, Tucson, Arizona, a gunman opened fire at a public gathering outside a grocery store, he killed six people including a nine-year-old girl and wounded twelve more including a US Congresswoman. July 2012, Aurora, Colorado, a gunman dressed up like a comic book villain stormed into a packed movie theater and started shooting, he killed twelve and wounded fifty-eight more. August 2012, Oak Creek, Wisconsin again, a gunman killed six people at Sikh temple before being shot dead by police. September 2012, Minneapolis, a gunman kills six including himself and wounds five more inside a small sign company. December 2012, Newtown, Connecticut,  a 20-year old gunman killed his mother and then shot his way into the Sandy Hook Elementary School and killed twenty small children, six adults, and himself.  February 2013, a former Navy officer and Los Angeles policeman declared war on the LAPD, over a period of nine days he killed four people including three police officers and wounded three more before eventually committing suicide by cop.  March 2013, Herkimer, upstate New York, a 64-year old man lit his apartment on fire, then coolly walked into a local barber shop and killed two people, then he drove to another business and killed two more, then he killed a police dog and was subsequently gunned down by the canine’s human partners. June 2013, Santa Monica, California, a 23-year old man went on a killing spree that left six people dead and four wounded and ended when he was shot dead by police inside the Santa Monica College Library.  July 2013, Hialeah, Florida, a man living with his mother lit their apartment on fire and then went on a rampage throughout the living complex, he killed seven before police returned the favor. September 16, 2013, twelve more dead at the Washington Navy Yard. April 2, 2014, Fort Hood, Texas, four more dead, including the shooter. June 17, 2015, Charleston, South Carolina, a racist sat quietly for an hour among the congregation of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, then without warning he  murdered nine people during prayer service and wounded a tenth – he was hoping to start a race war. July 20, 2015, Chattanooga, a self-declared Jihadist suffering from depression and drug use, mad at the US government, shot up a military recruiting center in a strip mall then drove to a local Navy operations support center and launched another attack, he killed four Marines and a Sailor and then died in a gunfight with law enforcement. July 23, 2015, Lafayette, Louisiana, a drifter with a gun fired thirteen rounds into a crowded movie theater, he killed two people, wounded nine, and then turned the gun on himself when police closed in (yes, he only killed two, but I give him an A for effort). October 1, 2015, a college campus in Oregon, ten dead, and the shooter killed himself after being wounded by police.

So? What do they all have in common?

What’s the common denominator? What’s the one thing common to all these mass shootings?

Is it Muslims? Is it males? Is it military targets? Is it children? Is it schools? Is it movie theaters? Malls? What could it be?

Wait.

Wait, hang on. I think I might know. Is it … guns?

Heh heh, nice try, Jim. Nope.

“And I think the one common denominator that’s pretty clear is, there’s a huge mental health challenge in our country."

Ah, mental health. I should have seen that coming.

Guns don’t kill people, folks, crazy people with guns kill people.

Obviously all of those people up above, all of those mass murderers, were mentally ill. Sure, you don’t just go around murdering people if you’re not nuts. That’s it. Well, thank God we figured that out, right?

We have a huge mental health challenge in our country.

And do you know why? (Hint: it’s not because we don’t provide funding and care)

“And people that live in isolation, they go on the internet, they live their lives there, they get deeply disturbed, and then they get worse, and they commit these atrocious acts. There should be some intervention earlier. If people have deep mental health challenges, they shouldn’t have access to purchase guns.”

It’s the internet!

That’s the problem. The internet makes people crazy. In fact, I’m probably crazy right now from writing this blog on the internet. You’re probably all crazy, mad as hatters, from being here on the internet. Look down, are you drooling yourselves? Show of hands, how many of you are Napoleon? Why, it’s Facebook! It’s Twitter! It’s internet porn! It’s video games! We’re all going bang bang crazy! It’s making us deeply disturbed, that’s what it is!

It’s not guns, hell no.

It’s mental health. It’s the crazy people. They’re the ones! And do you know what? People who have mental health challenges shouldn't be able to purchase guns –  it's okay if they already have guns, but they shouldn't be allowed to buy any more. See?

So, something we can agree on, Jeb Bush and me, crazy people shouldn’t be allowed to buy guns. Common ground, at last. Well, now we’re getting somewhere.

“I don’t know the facts about the case in Oregon, how this young man got his guns, but he clearly had mental health challenges. And the capturing system for mental health in this country is not as wide as it needs to be. And so I think states ought to look at this, to determine how you can protect privacy rights for people, but make sure that we get adequate information, so that people don’t fall through the cracks.”

Um, what?

What did Jeb just say?

Now now, hang on. Let’s for the sake of brevity, leave aside the part where he admits he doesn't actually "know the facts" but he's pretty sure the cause of mass murder is the gun lobby catchall, "mental illness,” – a position apparently based on NRA pamphlets and juju magics since there’s no validated scientific evidence for it and agencies which could produce such studies are forbidden by law and lack of funding from engaging in it.   I mean, he might be right, but how would you know?

I digress.

Let’s just go with Bush on this one: Mental illness causes all mass shootings.

Mental illness causes mass shootings. Crazy people with guns. Okay. I want to hear more about this "capturing system" for mental health, the one good enough to provide "adequate information" on every person in the US, which will presumably be reliable enough to flag everybody with even the most vague of "mental health" issues and then be able to determine which ones will become dangerous gun waving mass murders at some future date. 

I think there was a science fiction movie about that a while back, wasn’t there?

Mental health screening that can tell who will become a gun waving mass murder, and the system can do it to such a degree of accuracy conservatives like Bush would be willing to pass a law, or an amendment to the Constitution, and fully fund it, which would subsequently deny these crazy murderous bastards the right to buy guns.

Yeah, let’s hear more about that, because I find that idea fascinating.

While he’s at it, I’d like Bush to explain who exactly would be gathering this information (since, you know, conservatives have passed laws specifically preventing the medical community from asking any patient – no matter how disturbed – about their access to firearms.

I’d like to hear Bush explain who exactly would be reviewing such information should it somehow magically be acquired. There are a lot of guns purchased in America every day, thousands, we’re going to need a lot more government. Or would this be contracted out? Outsource to India maybe? How much is this going to cost? Who’s going to pay for it? Perhaps we could find a bunch of psychologists to conduct the exams and review the records on a voluntary basis, for the good of the community – or is that too socialist?

And what is the criteria we’ll be using to determine future murderous intent? Is mild depression grounds for denial of gun ownership? Or do you have to show up for the interview in a camouflage tutu wearing a mask made from the flensed face-skin of your grandma while laughing maniacally muwahahahahahHAha! Will your mental health status be reviewed by an actual panel of doctors trained in such behavior? Will Tom Cruise receive a magic red ball etched with the details of your future crime by a pre-cognitive mutant kept in a vat? Or will it be somebody experienced and educated in sane and rational firearms use, like, say Ted Nugent?

What?

Oh, now I’m just being silly, am I?

Look, Bush started it, you got a beef, you take it up with him.

“Had there been intervention in this guy’s case, he was in the military, he was, I think he got, he was discharged dishonorably, I believe, I don’t know what the exact circumstance, but he left within months of his enlisting, there should be some way to identify these things."

I believe.

I don’t know.

I’m not sure, but….

But there should be some way to identify these things.

Like fully funding veteran’s healthcare? Like spending as much on what happens after the war as waging it? Like funding Veterans mental health services as if it was an F-35 Strike Fighter assembly line in a Red State. Like throw money at it as if it was an oil subsidy? Like that? Is that what we’re talking about?

No? No, I suppose not.

So, anyway, we should have some kind of mental health screening for gun ownership.

Mental health, that’s the common denominator, that’s the problem. We need better mental healthcare in this country.

Everybody got that?

Better mental healthcare. Mental screening before allowing a gun purchase.

Anybody want to argue? No?

All right then. So, exactly how would President Bush (you have no idea how much it hurts me to type that) address the situation as he's outlined it? How would President Jeb Bush keep crazy people from buying guns?

Well, I’m glad you asked.

Today, Jeb Bush unveiled his plan to repeal and "replace" the Affordable Care Act, i.e. Obamacare.

Bush's plan in a nutshell:

- Repeal the individual mandate and make health insurance a benefit voluntarily provided by your employer. Like it was in the Old Republic, before the dark times, before Obama.

- Remove federal subsidies designed to help people buy health insurance and return control of healthcare plans to employers. Because if you believe in capitalism, well, then you know the free market is best suited to decide your healthcare needs. The free market and your boss. 

- “Encourage” people to create "healthcare savings plans,” apparently with all the extra money that will be trickling down from the benevolent largess of Wall Street. Because healthcare savings plans worked so very well in the past, just like those retirement saving plans Wall Street used to fuel their last harebrained scheme – you know, that one where they exploded the global economy with bad mortgages and rich people got even more unbelievably rich and everybody else got fucked right in the ass and lost their houses, jobs and healthcare? Like that.

- "Allow" employers to use "financial incentives" to "encourage" wellness. Your employers will encourage “wellness.” Your employer. Will encourage wellness. Be well, everybody!

I guess if you're unemployed you're on your own, wellness wise.

- Gets rid of the ACA's emphasis on preventative care, such as maternity coverage (remember, folks, in Republican Utopia life begins at conception and ends at birth, so once the kid is born, fuck you), annual screenings (such as cancer screening, gynecological exams, diabetes, high blood pressure, and so on), emergency services, those aforementioned wellness programs, and ...

…and…

Wait for it.

Waaaaaaait for it.

... MENTAL HEALTH SCREENING!

 

 

So, in summary:

Mass shootings are caused by mental illness.

And the cunning plan for addressing this supposed rash of Crazy People With Guns is to give them more guns and less mental health coverage.

It’s just me, isn’t it?

Does anybody else see a problem with this?

Does this seem … crazy to you?

Well, maybe you have to be a Republican.

Then again, it does make it easy to determine at a glance who should be allowed to have guns and who shouldn’t.

Crazy wise, I mean.

---

Addendum 1:  Every time I write one of these, I hope it's the last. But it never is, there's always another massacre. Always.
The Seven Stages of Gun Violence
The Bang Bang Crazy Series:
Part 1, What we need, see, are more guns, big fucking guns
Part 2, Gun violence isn't the exception in America, it's who we are
Part 3, Sandy Hook, the NRA, and a gun in every school
Part 4, More dead kids and why we have laws
Part 5, Gun control and a polite society
Part 6, The Christopher Donner rampage, they needed killin'
Part 7, Still more dead kids and let's print our own guns!
Part 8, Let's try blaming the victim, shall we?
Part 9, Armed soldiers on post, sure, nothing to go wrong there.
Part 10, Big Damned Heroes!
Part 11, Two in the Bush
What do we do about it? How do we change our culture of gun violence? Bang Bang Sanity

Addendum 2: As noted elsewhere, I’ve  been around guns my entire life. My dad taught me to shoot when I was a kid – in fact the very first gun I ever fired was my dad’s prized black powder .75 caliber smooth bore Civil War trench piece when I was about four years old. I still own my very first gun, bought from Meyer’s Thrifty Acres in Jenison, Michigan, for me by my dad when I was fourteen years old – a lever action Winchester 30-30. I got my first deer with that gun.  I grew up shooting, at home, in the Boy Scouts, hunting, target shooting, plinking, with friends and with family.  Thirty years ago I joined the military and spent my entire life there. I know more than a little about guns. I’m a graduate of the Smith & Wesson Rangemaster Academy, the nation’s premier firearms instructor school. I’m a certified armorer and gunsmith. I’ve attended pretty much every boarding officer and gun school the military has. I hold both the Expert Pistol and Expert Rifle Medals. I’ve taught small arms and combat arms to both military and civilians for nearly thirty years now. I’ve fired damned near everything the US military owns, from the old .38 revolver to a US Navy Aegis Guided Missile Cruiser’s 5” main battery – and everything in between. I can still field strip a Colt .45 M-1911 pistol and put it back together in under a minute, blindfolded – I happen to own several of them, along with numerous other semi-auto pistols and a number of revolvers. I used to shoot professionally and in competition. I helped to design, test, field, and fire in combat US Military weapons systems. I’ve spent my entire life in places where gun usage is extremely, extremely, common. I have a Concealed Carry Permit. I’m an Alaskan and I typically carry a gun in the wilds of Alaska on a regular basis. I am neither pro-gun nor anti-gun, a gun is a tool, nothing more. If you feel that I’m ignorant of guns, or that I’m anti-gun, or unAmerican, well, you’re welcome to speak your piece – just so long as you can live with what comes after.

More Bang Bang Crazy - Big Damned Heroes

Malcolm Reynolds: Well look at this. 'Pears we got here just in the nick of time. What does that make us?
Zoë Washburn: Big damn heroes, sir.
     - Firefly, Season 1, Episode 7 “Safe”

 

Ben Carson is a hero.

Oh yes he is. He’s a big damn hero.

Well, maybe. Probably.  In his mind.

Yesterday on Fox & Friends, Carson said,  "Not only would I probably not cooperate with him, I would not just stand there and let him shoot me. I would say 'Hey guys, everybody attack him. He may shoot me but he can't get us all'"

Carson was talking about the shooting at an Oregon community college last week, where yet another angry loser with a gun, mad at the world, murdered nine people and then, as usual, turned his weapon on himself.

In the bloody aftermath, the oh so tediously predictable aftermath, Carson told Fox viewers he wouldn’t have have been a victim.

No, Ben Carson would have been a hero.

A big damned hero.

Carson boasted that he personally would have led the counter attack, charging into a hail of bullets heedless of his own life. Follow me, boys! He can’t get us all! For America! For Freeeeeedom! For mom and apple pie and Republican Jesus!

I mean, it’s not brain surgery. You just shout “charge!” He can’t get us all, right?

Right.

Big damn hero, Ben Carson. Now that’s a campaign slogan worthy of a bumper sticker.

Big damned heroes, they’re always ready to give somebody’s life in defense of liberty, you bet.

I’ve met people like this. Wannabe heroes.

Too many.

I spent more than 20 years on active duty with the US military. I used to have a commanding officer, a Lieutenant, who I am absolutely certain practiced his Medal of Honor acceptance speech in the mirror every morning while shaving his big damned heroic chin. You know that speech? The big damn hero speech? Sure. It’s the one which begins all humble like, “Thank you, Mr. President. I’m sorry every one of my men were killed, but I’m honored, honored, to wear this award on their behalf…” All aw shucks and I wouldn’t call myself a hero, oh no sir. And what’s this? Why it’s a nice little scar that didn’t damage anything vital, just a big damned heroic wound to impress the laaaaadies. Oh yes.

Of course, when the balloon did go up and we were all out there on the pointy end of the stick, Commander Hero Chin (he’d gotten promoted by then) was heroically back in San Diego, heroically risking his life for America making heroic Power Point slides and fresh ground coffee for the admirals.

But man, if he’d been there, why, he’d have been a hero just like Ben Carson. Oh yes indeed. And for years afterward he’d regale anyone who’d listen with his tales of could-have-been heroism, “Man, if I was there, if I was there, man, you’d wouldn’t find me waiting to die, hell no. Why I wouldn’t just stand there and let him shoot me, no sir. I’d step right up and look that bastard in the eye! Follow me boys! He can’t get us all! For freeeeedom!”

That’s how these people think.

They practice their speeches, getting all the patriotic words just right, just the right amount of Captain America modesty, aw shucks anybody would have done it.

They rehearse how it’ll go down in their minds, a clever kick and a swift karate chop and they’ve got the terrorist’s gun and a pithy squint-eyed Dirty Harryism, do you feel lucky, Punk? and bang bang bang, they’re big damned heroes. Well, do ya?

And yet, oddly, guys like Ben Carson, they’re never on the front lines. Whenever it does go down, whenever the bullets start flying and the blood starts spraying and the screams echo in the halls … somehow, they’re nowhere to be found, these big damned heroes. It’s only afterwards they appear, oh, am I too late? Did I miss the battle? Well, let me tell you what I would have done.

We’re a nation of wannabe heroes, looking for our moment of glory.

This week, in Auburn Hills, Michigan, an affluent suburb of Detroit, a customer in a big box store parking lot attempted to help store security stop a suspected shoplifter by pulling out her gun and shooting at the suspect’s fleeing vehicle. The woman, a concealed carry license holder, saw a Home Depot Loss Prevention Officer attempting to stop a suspected shoplifter from getting into his vehicle. The suspect and his companion got away and took off in their SUV. So the woman, who was not a cop, not law enforcement, not involved, not threatened, not in fear of her life, and not defending herself or anyone else, pulled out her 9mm and began firing at the vehicle. What if there were other people in the car? Children say. So what? Who cares? It’s hero time!

Who presents a greater danger to the innocent public here? Some shoplifter who swiped a power drill or a box of screws or the good gal with a gun shooting in a flat trajectory across tarmac into a parking lot with a crowded highway and shopping center as a backstop?

Think about that.

Go ahead and take all the time you need.

While you’re at it, here's a thought problem for you:

Michigan is a Stand Your Ground state. Since the alleged shoplifter wasn't actually threatening this woman. And since she, as an uninvolved third party, menaced him with a gun. If he had a legal firearm in his possession at the time, would he have been justified in standing his ground, i.e. defending himself ala George Zimmerman, since any reasonable person would say his life was in danger? If not, why not?

Two weeks ago, another good guy with a gun apparently attempted to stop a carjacking at a Houston, Texas, gas station. Police say two men attacked a third man as he was pumping gas and then stole his truck. Another man, a good guy with a gun, pulled up, saw the attack, unlimbered his peacekeeper, and started shooting. Unfortunately, he hit the carjacking victim in the head instead of the thieves. The carjackers jumped into the victim’s truck and drove away. The shooter carefully picked up his spent shell casings and took off – not even bothering to check on the condition of the innocent man he’d just shot. Just another big damned hero.  Note: there is some conflicting information regarding this story. Some reports say the victim was not actually shot, and was in fact injured by the carjackers who hit him on the head.  Even now two weeks later there is no confirmation either way, and none of the original reports have been updated. However, I do note the original reports from local Houston media, based on actual police reports and on-scene witnesses, say the victim was shot in the head. Other media reports, based on secondhand accounts and filed a day or more later, say the victim was not shot. Regardless, all reports agree an uninvolved man fired on the carjackers and victim, policed his brass, and left the scene without helping the victim.

Now, certainly carjacking is a violent and dangerous crime.

Certainly the victim, whether injured by gunfire or by being hit on the head, has every right to defend himself, has every right to be angry and aggrieved at the violation. I don’t think anybody would argue that. Hell, I certainly wouldn’t argue his constitutional right to pull out his own legal weapon, should he have one, and use it to defend himself up to and including shooting at the guy who was shooting at him.

But in this case, who presented a greater threat to the public? The guys stealing a truck or the guy who wanted to be a big damned hero? Both ran away. Both took pains to hide their identities. Both are still at large and unidentified. So, how can you tell the hero from the zero? The victim was still injured, was still robbed, still left bleeding on the pavement.

Tell me, how did the gun improve this situation? How did it make anybody safer?

Think about it. Again, take all the time you need.

While you’re at it, here’s another thought problem:

Ponder the wisdom of a supposed responsible gun owner shooting into a gas station.

Three weeks ago in Des Moines, Iowa, a man was driving down a busy road when he saw another man running across the Dollar General parking lot. The running man jumped into a waiting truck which then sped away. The man suspected a robbery and attempted to stop the speeding truck by blocking it with his own vehicle. He drew his weapon and jumped out of his truck to confront the supposed robber … and was promptly hit by the suspect vehicle. He told police he then executed a “barrel roll”  and came up shooting - and if you’re having T. J. Hooker flashbacks here, rest assured you’re not the only one. The truck sped away. Whether the shooter actually hit anything or anybody remains unknown.

Tell me again, I forgot your previous answer, how did the gun improve this situation?

Tell me how the situation wouldn’t have been better served if he’d shot the suspects with his cell phone camera instead with his gun.

How does discharging a weapon in the middle of a busy intersection without regard to your backstop or surroundings make society safer?

While you’re at it, here’s yet another thought problem:

This guy, the shooter, we can agree he has a right to defend himself, yes? But would that have been necessary to begin with if he hadn’t jumped out of his truck with a gun in his hand? He put himself in danger. He put himself in danger because he could, because he was armed. Then he tried to shoot his way out of it when things went pear-shaped and it’s only by pure luck he didn’t hit a bystander. How comfortable are you with that? Good? Okay, now put your kids in that parking lot and answer the question again.

Big damned heroes.

Meanwhile in that same period, this last three weeks, how many crimes have been successfully stopped by a good guy with a gun?

Come now, let’s have a list. We’ve got nine more dead in Oregon. We’ve got the cases above. In Jefferson Country, Tennessee, we’ve got an 11-year old who deliberately killed his 8-year old neighbor with a 12-gauge shotgun in an argument over a puppy.  Heck, we’ve even got a story about US servicemen on a train in France who took down an armed terrorist with their bare hands.

But where are the Big Damned Heroes? Where are the good guys with their guns?

Why aren’t the headlines full of these people?

No, no, don’t look away. Don’t change the subject. Don’t move the goalposts. Where are they? Given the staggering amount of violence in this country, given the crime that fills our news feeds every day, given the mugs and the thugs and the Ebola infected brown people from Africa and the Muslim terrorists and the invading hordes of red commies and the raping illegals from south of the border, where is it? Where are the hundreds, thousands, millions, of headlines? Where are the tales of heroism and courage? I mean, given the sheer number of home invasions we are warned about every single day by the gun lobby, every single one of us should know somebody who’s fought it out with a crackhead in their kitchen at 2AM or took down a crazed shooter in the parking lot of their kid’s elementary school or defended an abortion clinic from some raging Christian Jesus Warrior equipped with his own personal arsenal of God … okay, that’s a bad example but I think I’ve made my point here.

Well?

Where are they?

Is it like Bigfoot and UFOs? Tens of millions of cell phone cameras and surveillance systems and none of them capture a single Good Guy With A Gun taking down the endless parade of bad guys we’re warned about every single day?

What?

What’s that?

Oh, I see. It’s the Second Amendment hating liberal media. They won’t publish stories about big damned heroes stopping crime with their guns. They’re hiding the truth! The truth! That’s it, isn’t it? Sure. Because Fox News, Newsmax, The Wall Street Journal, Guns&Ammo, Breitbart, Beck, Limbaugh, Coulter, those guys, right, liberal mouthpieces one and all. That must be it.

Sure.

"Can you imagine with Trump, somebody says, 'Ohhh, all these big monsters aren't around, he's easy pickins, and then ... pu-ching! So this is about self-defense, plain and simple!"

Self defense? I thought this was about shooting down your government because you’re feeling oppressed by tyranny? No?

Okay, self defense. Whatever you say, Chuck.

Donald Trump told the crowd at a suburban Nashville campaign stop on Saturday he has a New York state concealed carry permit and if faced with an attack like that last week in Oregon he’d go all Charles Bronson. The crowd loved the idea of The Donald as a raging vigilante so much they started chanting “Death Wish! Death Wish!”

Trump then went on to rail against "gun-free zones," telling the cheering crowd the Oregon shootings could have been stopped if only teachers and students had been armed.  He somehow left out the part where Umpqua Community College is not a gun free zone – and in fact Oregon state law forbids colleges from outlawing guns. But hey, Death Wish Trump is on a roll and why spoil a thing with facts, right?

I’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader to visualize Donald Trump, Donald Trump, massive gold-plated .50 Desert Eagle clutched in one hand, American flag in the other, chest bared, fighting it out Hollywood style with the next mass shooter in the hallways of your kid’s school. Pu-Ching! Oh you want some of this! How about some of this? Do ya, Punk? Pu-Ching! Pu-Ching!

Trump, like Jeb Bush and his fellow conservatives blamed the vague catchall “mental illness” for America’s gun violence and then, like Bush, noted stuff just happens. “No matter what you do, you will always have problems," Trump said and added that “it doesn't make sense to limit access to firearms.”

It doesn’t make sense to limit access to firearms.

Not even for people with “mental illness?”

Ah, you know, never mind.

As extra credit, consider this thought problem:

Mass shootings in the US are random events unrelated to gun proliferation and violent culture. Nine unarmed innocent people are gunned down in cold blood by a nut with a bad haircut and a grudge, and we shrug and say, hey, shit just happens. A nut dressed like a comic book character shoots up a movie theater? Shit happens. A racist murders people in their church? Shit happens. Another nut with a bad haircut and mental problems takes his mother’s personal arsenal and murders first her and then a school full of kindergarteners? Whoa, slow down there, Hoss, look here, shit just happens. There’s nothing you can do about it and we don’t need to be making any rash changes. Did I say rash changes? Hell, we don’t need to be making deliberate changes either. No changes.

Shit just happens, man.

Now, given that, what do you call it when four armed Americans are gunned down in the middle of a violent revolution in a North African country steeped in gun culture?

Hint: 10 congressional committees and 32 congressional hearings are pretty sure shit doesn’t just happen.

Shit just happens.

And Bobby Jindal knows why. Jindal didn’t blame fate. Shit might just happen in Bobby’s world, but at least he knows where the blame lies.

It’s bad parenting, see? 

Jindal went after the shooter’s father:

“He’s a complete failure as a father! Because he failed to raise his son.”

Jindal was enraged because the shooter’s father condemned his murderous son’s actions, questioned how a kid with mental problems could just legally buy four guns, and called for reasoned discussion of gun violence. Jindal was pissed! How dare he? It’s an outrage! Why a real father, a real father, would have … I dunno, bought his mentally disturbed kid more guns like the Charleston Shooter, took him to the range like the Sandy Hook Shooter, something, man. A real father of a mass murderer wouldn’t be talking about gun control, why that’s unAmerican. A real father would have charged the shooter, yeah, like Ben Carson, been a big damned hero.

Jindal wrote a blog post titled We fill Our Culture with Garbage, and We Reap The Result. He blamed music that promotes “the degradation of women” and flouts “the laws of God and common decency.” And of course, he wouldn’t be a Republican if he didn’t also blame abortion. 

Mike Huckabee chimed in on that theme:

“We have not so much a gun problem, we have a problem with sin and evil.”

Sin and evil. Abortion. Ah, of course. In other words, “If women weren’t rutting godless whores, none of this would have happened.” Sin folks, who’s fault is that?

Exactly.

 

And so what have we learned in the wake of yet another bloody rampage?

 

All of this violence has one thing in common. But that’s not the problem, folks. No, Sir.

It’s women having sex, that’s the problem here.

It’s that Rock & Roll music. It’s Elvis the Pelvis and that Satan loving heavy metal.

It’s TV. It’s video games. Though oddly, you don’t see conservatives promoting peaceful TV and non-violent video games and why is that?

It’s gun free zones. Though, perversely, the vast majority of gun violence occurs outside of gun free zones pretty much every single day, but just never mind that. Move along. Move along.

It’s mental illness.  But, hey, let’s fight tooth and nail against anything that might keep crazy people from buying guns.

It’s sin. It’s evil. It’s abortion and gay people. It’s illegal aliens. It’s divorce and bad fathers who don’t like guns. Because, and lets be honest here, if we let God make the laws, why this sort of thing wouldn’t happen. No violence in the bible, right? Other that part about virtuous fathers sacrificing their sons on stone altars or handing out their daughters like door prizes, or that part, you know, where God slaughters all the firstborn kids and drowns the entire planet.

No, it’s everything but guns.

What we need, see, is more guns. Yeah, that’ll fix the problem.

What we need, is some big damned heroes. Follow me, they can’t shoot us all!

Last night, Ben Carson appeared on SiriusXM’s Karen Hunter Show and related his own real life act of heroism. Carson, it seems was once held at gunpoint inside a Popeye’s fast food restaurant during a robbery.

“Guy comes in,” Carson tells it. “Put the gun in my ribs.”

Did Carson refuse to cooperate? Did he refuse to stand there and take it? Did he shout Hey guys! Everybody attack him. He may shoot me but he can't get us all!

Actually what Ben Carson, Big Damned Hero, said in his own words was:

“I have had a gun held on me when I was in a Popeye’s organization. I just said, ‘I believe you want the guy behind the counter.'”

Are you feeling lucky? Well are ya? Because I believe you want the guy behind the counter. Punk.

Zoë Washburn: Do you know what the definition of a hero is? Someone who gets other people killed.
- Serenity, 2005

 

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Addendum 1:  Every time I write one of these, I hope it's the last. But it never is, there's always another massacre. Always.
The Seven Stages of Gun Violence
The Bang Bang Crazy Series:
Part 1, What we need, see, are more guns, big fucking guns
Part 2, Gun violence isn't the exception in America, it's who we are
Part 3, Sandy Hook, the NRA, and a gun in every school
Part 4, More dead kids and why we have laws
Part 5, Gun control and a polite society
Part 6, The Christopher Donner rampage, they needed killin'
Part 7, Still more dead kids and let's print our own guns!
Part 8, Let's try blaming the victim, shall we?
Part 9, Armed soldiers on post, sure, nothing to go wrong there.
Part 10, Big Damned Heroes!
Part 11, Two in the Bush
What do we do about it? How do we change our culture of gun violence? Bang Bang Sanity

Addendum 2: As noted elsewhere, I’ve  been around guns my entire life. My dad taught me to shoot when I was a kid – in fact the very first gun I ever fired was my dad’s prized black powder .75 caliber smooth bore Civil War trench piece when I was about four years old. I still own my very first gun, bought from Meyer’s Thrifty Acres in Jenison, Michigan, for me by my dad when I was fourteen years old – a lever action Winchester 30-30. I got my first deer with that gun.  I grew up shooting, at home, in the Boy Scouts, hunting, target shooting, plinking, with friends and with family.  Thirty years ago I joined the military and spent my entire life there. I know more than a little about guns. I’m a graduate of the Smith & Wesson Rangemaster Academy, the nation’s premier firearms instructor school. I’m a certified armorer and gunsmith. I’ve attended pretty much every boarding officer and gun school the military has. I hold both the Expert Pistol and Expert Rifle Medals. I’ve taught small arms and combat arms to both military and civilians for nearly thirty years now. I’ve fired damned near everything the US military owns, from the old .38 revolver to a US Navy Aegis Guided Missile Cruiser’s 5” main battery – and everything in between. I can still field strip a Colt .45 M-1911 pistol and put it back together in under a minute, blindfolded – I happen to own several of them, along with numerous other semi-auto pistols and a number of revolvers. I used to shoot professionally and in competition. I helped to design, test, field, and fire in combat US Military weapons systems. I’ve spent my entire life in places where gun usage is extremely, extremely, common. I have a Concealed Carry Permit. I’m an Alaskan and I typically carry a gun in the wilds of Alaska on a regular basis. I am neither pro-gun nor anti-gun, a gun is a tool, nothing more. If you feel that I’m ignorant of guns, or that I’m anti-gun, or unAmerican, well, you’re welcome to speak your piece – just so long as you can live with what comes after.