Monday, October 2, 2017

Incoherent rant

Last week's news should have been all about Puerto Rico dealing with the destruction of a hurricane.  Instead, too much of it was focused on the rantings of a bigot who has spent his life wiping his ass with the American flag, complaining about people who have a legitimate problem respectfully exercising their right to protest.  The bigot confused respectful protest with disrespect for the flag and the soldiers who fought under it.  The bigot also thought that the soldiers fought for the flag and not for the values it represents.

The bigot, and the party of whom he is the leader, are dedicated to the primacy of the second amendment to the constitution, or specifically one phrase thereof.  To the bigot and his party, this one isolated phrase, stripped of its modifying companion in its sentence, is sacred.

Last night, facilitated by the bigot's party, a guy armed with military weapons (and not acting as part of a well-regulated militia) opened fire on a crowd in Las Vegas, killing (as of this time) 59 people and wounding hundreds.

As I drove through town today, the flag at the National Cemetery was at half-mast, per the bigot's orders.  As I listened to the radio recounting the night's events, I had to wonder if the people now interred under those ranks and ranks of tombstones were really serving, fighting, and dying so that a guy could legally arm himself with a platoon's weapons and kill and injure so many citizens.  Would any of them be moved to rise from the earth and yell like banshees at the bigot and his party?  Could they shamble out of their graves and trouble the dreams of the bigot and his party?  Could one of them gesture at regiments of the risen dead, and point out the bit of the constitution that mentions a well-regulated militia?

I don't think that the dead at the National Cemetery can do this, and I don't think that the dead from Las Vegas this week can teach the bigot or his party either.  Nor can the dead from Roseburg, two years ago, or Sandy Hook or Columbine or Aurora.  I don't think anything can teach the bigot or his party.  I don't think anything can teach half of our country, either.  I am not feeling optimistic tonight.