Summary: Another horror comes among us with the latest mass shooting, this one in the peaceful village of Newtown, Connecticut. The bodies of the passion-bearers have not even been buried and already the jackass chorus is braying its damn fool notions that somehow this incident is the fault of secularists “driving God out of the public square,” queerfolk, and uppity, pro-choice women. The damn fools of the jackass chorus may have a First Amendment right to insert their foot into their mouth and chew right down to the bone, but the rest of us, who live in the reality-based community, have an equal First Amendment right to call bullshit.
By: Paul S. Marchand
Oh dear God, not again.
Like a bad folk song with a tiresome refrain that never stops repeating itself, America has once again been shocked by a horrific act of mass gun violence.
When Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and Chief U.S. District Judge John Roll were shot, and Judge Roll was killed, last year in Tucson by an apparently unbalanced shooter, I posted in this blog to urge that we all take time for considerate and careful reflection.
What do we think? What do we know? What can we prove?
After the horrors of Newtown, Connecticut, and the experiences in Aurora, in Clackamas County, and Virginia Tech, we should have learned by now that the aftermath of events such as these is no time for loudmouths among us to prove conclusively that horses’ asses outnumber horses.
Indeed, without even waiting for the passion-bearers whose lives were cut off so young to be buried, the jackasses are braying. Former Arkansas Governor and sometime presidential wannabe Mike Huckabee was the first out of the box with his outlandish claim that the shooting had occurred because we had somehow “escorted God out of the public square.” Huckabee would have done better had he remained silent. The society that insists upon imposing a sectarian vision of God in the public square will sooner or later use that public square as a venue for the horrors of the auto-da-fé.
But Mike Huckabee wasn’t the only jackass offering damn fool notions about what caused the Newtown shootings. The latest claim from the Ridiculous Right is that abortion and gay rights were responsible for the shooting; it's all the fault of queerfolk and uppity, pro-choice women. Bloody fools like James Dobson Of Focus on the Family and heretics like Phred “God hates Fags” Phelps felt it incumbent to weigh in on this issue with foolish, judgmental, hateful, and theologically unsustainable opinions and conclusions.
It all seems to be about God, Guns, and Gays.
Apparently, at least in the Dobson/Phelps view, God put guns in the hands of the shooter to illustrate His displeasure with America’s growing tolerance of gays.
You don’t have to be queer to find such views ridiculous and indefensible. Sadly, our social dialogue has reached the point where moral midgets like Huckabee, Dobson, and their fellow travelers on the Ridiculous Right --- the same people who brought us so-called legitimate rape and rape children being part of God's plan --- rejoice in the happening of dreadful events because they look forward to being able to wag their hypocritical fingers. As an acquaintance of mine put, “whatever some whack job shoots up a theater or a mall or school, some other right wing whack job comes out of the woodwork and starts casting blame.”
No doubt, once the State of Connecticut concludes its investigation, we will have a better sense of the whys and wherefores that led another unbalanced young man to matricide and mass murder. In the meantime, we should withhold judgment before forming conclusions and opinions. Sadly, the jackass chorus hasn’t bothered to wait to take that considerate and careful break from jumping to conclusions.
What we can know is that after a dismal season of mass shootings, the President was right when he said these tragedies need to end. We must have a serious, non-hysterical conversation about the extent to which our embrace of guns has created a social psychopathology. We cannot have that discussion as long as the jackasses are braying and the NRA -- which should be investigated as a racketeering organization -- continues to try to raise money off of tragedies such as this.
Already, rumors are circulating that the NRA plans a fund-raising appeal grounded on baseless assertions that “the government is coming to take gun-owners’ firearms away.” Doubtless, the NRA’s propaganda will soon have black helicopters from the UN descending in our backyards to disgorge foreigners come to seize our weapons and take away our freedoms. And so the jackass chorus continues.
What happened in Connecticut last week was bad enough without the usual suspects opening their mouths, inserting feet therein, and then chewing down to the bone. America is a great nation, and damn fools peddling damn fool notions have a First Amendment right to do so. But the rest of us -- the vast, non-jackass majority -- also have an equal First Amendment right to call bullshit when we hear it.
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Paul S. Marchand is an attorney who lives and works in Cathedral City, California, where he served eight years on the city Council. He has no patience for, and is quite willing to call out, bullshit when he sees it, and makes no apologies to prudes and bluenoses who might take pernickety exception to his use of a term that frankly could use a little more deployment in our conversation. The views contained herein are his own, and not anybody else’s, and nobody has any right to try to veto his expression under claim of some kind of offense. They are not intended, and should not be construed, as legal advice.
