There is Nothing Like a Gun

 As sung by the OK Chorale

We’ve got horseshit on our boots;

We’ve got cow shit on our knees;

We’ve got aliens and non-whites we can pick right off with ease;

We’ve got pick-ups and our gun racks, ammunition by the tons;

What ain’t we got?

We ain’t got guns!

We get cartridges from Walmart;

We get booze and we get beer;

We get NRA postings and we’re furious with fear; 

We get emails from congressmen requesting lots of dough;

What ain’t we got?

 A good gun show.

We’ve got nothing to load and cock more

What we need there ain’t no substitute for.

There is nothing like a gun

Nothing in the world

There is nil beneath the sun

That is anything like a gun! 

We feel restless; we feel blue;

We feel lonely and in brief;

We feel every kind of feeling but the feeling of relief;

We feel our finger twitching as if we were Eastwood;

What don’t we feel?

We don’t feel good.

Lots of things in life are beautiful, but brother:

There is one particular thing

That is in no way, shape, or form

Like any other.

There is nothing like a gun,

Nothing in the world;

There is nil beneath the sun,

That is anything like a gun!

There are no thrills like a gun;

And nothing kills like a gun;

And nothing maims like a gun

Or makes remains like a gun;

There ain’t a thing that’s wrong with any man’s son

That can’t be cured by giving him one:

A semi-auto, high caliber, multi-clip, beautiful gun!    

  

Guns in America

            What we have today is a shortage of guns in America, not a surplus. So say the gun rights folks who argue that had more people been armed in Aurora or Columbine or Sandy Hook, fewer lives would have been lost. The assumptions that lie behind this assertion are rather low caliber:

1.       Good guys with guns could drop a lunatic before he could fulfill his mission;

2.       More guns reduce violence;

3.       If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.

            Each of these assertions, in turn, relies on the assumption of individual power, individual self-defense, individual independence, and individual self-reliance as having primacy over any notion of group action. The bottom line is always I, and I alone, must finally protect myself because government will never provide the same protection without severely limiting my freedom. On the other hand, more availability of guns in the public domain is going to increase the odds of those guns getting into the wrong hands and being abused. But never mind that irritating detail that might otherwise disturb the imperfect logic of owning a personal gun.     

            Let us, for example, take a look outside the realm of firearms and use the personal car (automobile) as an analogy. America has one of the lowest commitments to public transportation of any developed nation because of the personal freedom the personal car affords the individual. We can come and go as we want when we want. Even though we might complete our daily commute in half the time were we to utilize a more readily available public form of transportation, we choose the privacy of our personal vehicle over sitting on a bus or a train. Therefore, saving time is not the issue. It is the privacy and isolation that we are unwilling to compromise for greater efficiency of energy, money, and time use. Once again, our personal freedom is defined as the individual compartment we would rather ride to work in even if vastly superior public transportation could exist as it does in many European and Asian cultures.

            Therefore, in the context of our bizarre cultural mores that puts personal freedom from contact with our fellow Americans in traveling to and from work above any other sense of convenience such as cost, speed, or efficiency, is it no wonder that the personal firearm is seen as a “logical” extension of that notion of freedom?  Rich folks can hire a bodyguard to be their personal protector or policeman, but even that is inconvenient in that one has to manage the bodyguard and put up with his personal idiosyncrasies, so therefore why not just buy a gun and be self-reliant? After all, self-reliance is at the heart of the American ethos. Just look back at Emerson’s essay on the subject and you will be reminded of just how self-sufficient and therefore inefficient we truly are. Perhaps the notion of self-reliance prompted Emerson to write the statement in another essay: “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”

            Yes, ladies and gentlemen of the United States of America, you can look forward to more cars, more guns, and more ammunition with which to secure your personal self-reliance in the face of any and all threats to your personal freedom. You can also look forward to a more exciting shopping experience this Christmas season, even in that out-of-the-way antique store where you might find an exquisite decanter from which to pour your personal favorite whiskey so that you can isolate yourself even further from the rest of humanity in your own personal alcoholic fog:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt7FDTpzGvo.

Tea Party to Change Name

            In order to start 2013 on fresh footing, the heretofore Tea Party has decided to change its name. Having gone overboard with attacks on taxation of anything and everything, Goodman Norquist has suggested that a new name more in line with the movement’s actual historical precedent would be a fit way to celebrate the New Year. After all, it was at Salem rather than Boston that the witch hunt originated.  Proclaiming socialism as the 21^st Century equivalent of witchcraft, Goody Norquist has called for a refocus on the devil in our midst. Taxation is just a small aspect of the larger evil.

            Since over one million Americans googled the word “socialism” in relation to President Obama in the last year, Norquist hopes to capitalize on this new-found focus and link it to the most prominent witch hunt in America history. The Tea Party will hereafter be called Salem Lights .

 

            Not to be confused with the cigarette by that name, Salem Lights will be symbolized by the incandescent bulb, a  now historical form of lighting that produces a lot of heat, uses a lot of energy, costs the user a great deal more money, and burns out in a couple of years. Any member of Salem Lights will be required to use incandescent bulbs as a matter of principle. After all, it is socialism that has brought us the energy saving fluorescent bulb followed by the LED bulb which stands for Lighting Every Democrat. Who do those socialists think they are imposing energy-saving devices on American patriotic citizens? If the incandescent bulb was good enough for Thomas Jefferson or Thomas Edison or even doubting Thomas, it is good enough for us.

            Norquist is careful not to link the new name to the failed campaign of Senator McCarthy who orchestrated his own quest (or is it quist?) in the early 1950’s to root our communism from American culture.”Communism,” says Norquist, “is not an issue. It is the insidious nature of socialism where people actually help each other. The more fortunate take care to make sure the less fortunate have a chance to succeed. It’s more subtle than communism and less obvious but becoming so pervasive we are almost at a point of no return. Imagine a world where no longer may the rich get richer and the poor be damned. Socialism is deceitful in that it feels so natural and yet we know it is an abomination. So what if Jesus practiced it. There is no mention of socialism in the Bible. Therefore, it is the work of the devil.”

            Now that we have shed some light on what Salem Lights is all about, why not go out and buy a pack of cigarettes by that name and celebrate your new-found freedom from government coercion and re-submit your psyche to the control of private enterprise. After all, isn’t the tobacco industry a more trustworthy repository of goodness than the U.S. government?  Must USA come to mean United Socialists of America?       

Banana Republican

            Facts seldom matter in the United States. Perception produced by spin has become the fabric of our lives. A tweet is currency, unlike an essay: it not only gets to the point, it is the point because it is pointed and flies like an arrow. Give a zinger, and don’t linger. In God We Trust. 

            Obama lost the first debate not only because his energy was low; he lost it because he succumbed to factuality. The problem with an incumbent is that he goes through a metamorphosis during his first term. He starts out as a butterfly, all colorful and full of light. By the time four years are up he has transformed into a dung beetle. All the crap of his presidency is dragged out into the open for all to see, rolled up into a ball, and attached to him with a chain. He can deliver slivers of reality all he wants, but the public is already gawking at a new butterfly full of promises.

            The new butterfly, Mitt Romney, is all silver and gold, except for his face, which is bronze. He twinkles and flits from position to position like a butterfly in a flower garden.  He is a creature above it all, far out of reach of any political iguana with a sharp tongue. You get the impression from his post-debate campaign that he somehow spoke truth to pretense and pummeled defenseless Obama with fact after fact until the President stood listless on the podium at Magness Arena. For someone who never found success in sports, Romney sure looked agile.

            The truth is Magness Arena should be renamed Madness Arena after Romney’s brazen use of weapons of mass deception and Obama’s apparent shock that Romney dared to use them on prime time television. It was rope-a-dope time with Mitt transforming from mere butterfly to spider in butterfly disguise threading the stage with so much supply-side spin Obama became a rapt wrapper – just another suit.

            Now Romney is pro-abortion. At the debate he was suddenly pro-regulation. By the end of his campaign he will have had so many pros and cons the American public will finally conclude he is nothing but a PROfessional CON-artist.  But no: The American public is so gullible, so emotional, so star-struck by anything that glitters it will embrace the face and ignore the truth. This brazen-faced butterfly Romney just may land in the White House, not because he has a coherent philosophy or plan.

             Politics is really a form of professional wrestling (ask Linda McMahon of Connecticut) where the candidates dress up in gaudy platitudes and promises and do battle on a stage. The guy who looks the best at the end wins, never mind how many real blows he lands.

            America is essentially becoming a banana republic in so many ways, not the least of which is signaled by the growing divide between rich and poor. That so many in the 47 percent could vote for a man who writes them off suggests just how irrational America is.  Tea Partier is an inappropriate name for them. Banana Republican is much better.     

            Here’s a definition of a Banana Republican: a person who is duped into voting against his own interests either by himself or by somebody else. He may be a member of the Tea Party or just some uninformed voter who cannot or will not separate the facts from the chaff. He may be a billionaire or a pauper. What he does not understand is that Democrats have presided over the greatest increases in both the stock market and the main street market over the last 80 years. Republicans have presided over none.* He fails to understand that we are all better off when we are all better off.

            Let’s face it. If you sit in front of Rush Limbaugh or Fox News and absorb the high calorie-low nutrition political diet they feed you, you will vote against your self-interest. It’s as simple as that. Big Brother Rush is in your head, in your gut, not Big Government or Big Bird.  If there is any trickle down dynamic going on out there in America, it is trickle-down self-deception. 

* See The Economist: Buttonwood: “Voting with the wallet” October 6, 2012

Mitt Romney: Automobile

            Mitt Romney’s father made cars and ran for president. Mitt, it turns out, IS an automobile. Granted, he is tireless and doesn’t absorb bumps well like most cars, but he does offer a host of features that are remarkable.

            For example, the Mitt does not require you to select a color. It is a mechanical chameleon capable of changing colors as it goes. If you are feeling bright and sunny and want to project warmth, you simply have to reflect that feeling and your new Mitt will turn red or orange depending on whether or not you are in Florida, where oranges are popular or Vermont where the leaves turn bright red in autumn. However, the default color is white to reflect both the slimming but still majority of the U.S. population as well as the aura of innocence and purity.

            Another feature of the Mitt is that it can change direction on a dime. One minute it can be cruising along a route that is straight and narrow and suddenly you find your Mitt making a turn and heading in a direction quite different from the one you expected. It has a kind of creative GPS and route program that shifts without notice but adapts to the environment and circumstances of the moment. In other words, the Mitt may ride hard over bumps but it slithers along reading the landscape and adapting to what it sees as efficiency and expediency. It may run roughshod over lower orders of life such as American workers and big birds, but it does have the capacity to carry caged canines on its roof.

            The Mitt is a handsome car but rather expensive. It requires millions of dollars to keep it running and can only operate on high octane dollars from crude sources. Fortunately, it has a fuel injection system directly into its tank from nearly all the major oil companies, so it never has to worry about running out of fuel.

            You may not have ever heard of a car running for president, but let me remind you that it is not the first machine to run. Back in the 1920s we had a Hoover win an election, and we all know what happened with that result. It really sucked.