After a movie or TV script goes to production draft, each set of revisions gets printed on a different color of paper. While it would be neat and tidy if every first draft was the final draft, it never ever works out that way. Hell, I don’t know why we even call it “writing” when all good writing is really “re-writing”. If we had any sense, we’d call it “re-writing” to begin with so everyone…
Words matter. In a democracy, they matter a lot. Ours is a do-it-yourself government. We don’t have a king or a dictator to solve our problems because we chose to solve them all ourselves – using the majority’s wisdom. In order to do that, we have to agree on a couple of things: to begin with, what are our problems? To solve that question, we all need to be on the same page. We need to agree on…
America should not be having a gun debate. That’s because the Second Amendment isn’t a puzzle. It was a straightforward fix to a very particular problem that was relevant then and not relevant now. The good news? Within that fix is our fix – the one we need to solve America’s intractable gun problem. The fix is the word that ISN’T anywhere in the 2A. “Own”. I dare ya! Point to the word “own” in…
The Emperor Is Bare-Assed Naked! California experienced at least two mass shootings yesterday. One in Monterey Park (near LA), the other in Half Moon Bay, not far from San Francisco. Both, it appears, were angry men using firearms (instead of therapy) to resolve their emotional issues. That’s a pretty regular part of many (if not most) mass shooting incidents – the part where a male in deep…
We’re Having The Wrong Debate About The 2nd Amendment And Guns: “Own” Isn’t In The 2A
This is very much an “Emperor’s New Clothes” situation. America watches a naked king ride by every day while pretending that this bloated, pink-skinned, pimply-and-pock-marked monarch is clothed. As we sit here today, we have it in our heads that the Second Amendment guarantees all Americans the right to own all the guns they want. I know why we think it says that (the gun lobby and the NRA), but…
Why E Pluribus Unum Matters
Most Americans – if they think about the country’s founding – focus on “All men are created equal”. Alas, when our founders wrote those words, they didn’t mean them. Oh, they meant the “men” part. Only men could be other men’s equals. But by “men”, they meant only men like themselves: white, wealthy, land owning Christians. It was a very exclusive club. At the same time, a few of those wealthy,…
Does the 2A Really Guarantee Individual Gun Ownership? No, It Does Not!
Sandy Hook… Uvalde… Las Vegas… Orlando… Marjory Stoneman… Columbine… Every-damned-day-in-America! How the hell did it come to this? True Fact: we have been bamboozled into accepting a bullshit framing of the Second Amendment. We have it in our heads now that the 2A is a gun *rights* amendment. It’s the exact opposite – there is no right to individual gun ownership – and it’s right there in the…
Republicans Aren’t Cowards, They’re Co-Conspirators
Smile when you call us “cowards” (even if we’re really co-conspirators). Ever since Donald Trump planted himself in the Republican Party like a stinkweed in a field of bullshit, cowardice has stalked the GOP. No one called Republicans “cowards” for raising Ronald Reagan to near sainthood. Love him or hate him, Reagan was a conservative idealogue peddling a feel-good city on a hill. Quite a…
What Do Conservatives Want To Conserve? The Past
To conservatives, slavery was “just business”. That’s exactly the problem. Maybe the only honest thing your average conservative ever does is call him or herself “conservative”. Conservatives, by nature, want to conserve (although, ironically, one of the things most conservatives don’t want to conserve IS Nature but never mind!). The only important question, really, is what do conservatives want…
A Better America Versus A Bitter America
Hello, America: I’m the fork in your road! America has arrived at the fork in its road. This fork has always been here. Hell, it’s been waiting for us. In one direction lies the future. Though uncertain, it’s brimming with boundless promise for the most amount of people. In the other lies the past. The past was very good for some but downright awful for most others. In that way, most of us are…
