Although this article is based on recent events but closely related to my articles on The Catcher in the Rye and the inner child., it is also about the constant fight for constitutional freedom, that must never cease because freedom's enemies are not stopping.
Ok. I'm writing this on April 22, 1999. Two days ago, two high school goth darksider losers wannabe Nazis in Colorado went and killed 13 people. Reports of giggling, taunting, and racist epithets abounded. People are asking why? But that one is easy.
No one has not spent their entire life on this earth without at one point or the other thinking about a violent revenge. We hide it sometimes, but it's there. Have you ever heard a street preacher talk about AIDS? They claim to be warning homosexuals, but they are celebrating the death of people they don't like.
Because no one wants to admit that violence is something that festers in the hearts of all, the externals get blamed. Trenchcoats are getting banned. Rock music is evil. Nazi paraphenalia is easy to get. This shouldn't be surprising. Christianity created Satan in order to pass the buck for G-d's and humanity's misbehavior even after conversion.
And in keeping with the tradition of passing the buck,
the Mayor of Salt Lake City was on the news outlining the Mayors Conference on School Violence. According to this woman the leading causes of school violence have nothing to do with caste systems, teenage aggression, anger, and the general feeling that everyone is against you. Nope. In this woman's simple world the leading causes are a. Guns, b. Violence in the Media c. lack of school uniforms. So the plan of action is a.Gut the 2nd amendment, b. Gut the 1st, c. Conformity Conformity Conformity
Do I have to outline why this woman is full of shit? Would it matter? Would her constituents listen to me? Would an entire country addicted to simple solutions to complicated situations even care? I went to college during Politcal Correctness's pomposity (let's not talk to each other and yell at each other, let's just make it illegal to say "faggot". That will solve everyone's problems), and I know what its like to hear self-righteous know-nothings tell you what to think.
A. Guns guns guns. Well they were shooting with guns. They were killing people with guns. Guns are made to kill people. They were also using pipe bombs. Wanna make household cleaners illegal? Now, normally I'm in favor of gun control. Too many stupid people are getting guns and shooting themselves in the feet. Yet, when my governor Jess "Insert moniker here" Ventura says that things would have been different if some of the teachers were packing, I'm not so sure that he's full of shit. (And I'm happy to say that for all the things I don't like about him, he's not so much a hypocrite as to blame media violence) It's not completely a coincidence that it was the tourists in Florida who were getting killed after they legalized concealed weapons for the citizens (it might not be a coincidence that many of the dead tourists were Germans and that Florida is a retirement community for old Jews. But Esther and Yitzi's retirement hobbies are for another essay). My ex-girlfriend says that in teaching an ESL class that all the Somali, Ethiopian and Northern African countries don't allow guns in the citizenry. Only the army carries guns in these countries. These people find that to be preferable but government sponsored massacres aren't that preferable to angst ridden massacres to me. Maybe I'm biased by my origin.
B. Media Violence. Ok so big deal if Keanau Reeves puts on a bitching trenchcoat and starts shooting things. Milliions of people saw that movie and only two started killing people wearing trenchcoats. Billions of people read the Bible and stick to the markedly less violent Jesus parts in the Christian addition, and at least a million Christians became killers throughout history. But playing violent video games is bad. Watching violent movies is bad. Did the movies make us aggressive? Were the Crusades caused by too many video games? Did someone sneak a bootleg of Scarface into Nazi Germany, thereby distracting Germans from the Happy Marching Kraut movies of Leni Reifenstahl, driving them momentarily insane enough to build Auschwitz? No Media violence is good for you, the Greeks knew it. Catharsis. And before you give me that "violence was offstage" jazz, go and read the descriptions in the plays.Read about Oedipus ripping out his eyes while his mother wife hangs above him. Read about Medea's gift to the king and his daughter that rips the flesh from their bones. This isn't pretty. This is mean. This is nasty stuff. And high schoolers read it. And don't even start on Shakespeare. The only play that is "safe" for High Schoolers (no sex) is Julius Ceasar. Ruined by being read too early before the implications of the play can be realized (complications of personality cults, man's willingness to surrender his freedom in favor of security, and the consequences of actions vs. the randomness of fate and how someone can do something for the best of intentions and ruin everything he was fighting to preserve, etc.) What Julius Ceasar does offer is a nice grisley assassination scene, right there in the middle. Stab stab stab, bye bye. I'd like the next massacre to be a bunch of toga wearing psychopaths with big long knives. Let's see them try to censor Shakespeare.
But the last part is worse because it ignores everything else. School Uniforms have been pushed forever. I guess they figured that uniforms made postal workers so sane, that they must work with high schoolers. And the schools agree. Like all high schools, the Denver schools are too dumb and lazy to work on real problems and figure that a trenchcoat is the smoking gun. If only we can get people to stop wearing trenchcoats they'll stop being psychos. If only we can ban porn, rape will end. If only...
Haven't we as a human race learned anything? Simple solutions breed only contempt. Every military coup thought it was going to bring peace to the country in question, and every military coup only made matters worse.
So here we are in a country that placed freedom of speech and the right to bear arms in the constitution and the fabric of the constititution is so fragile that two guys in trenchcoats and 13 dead teenagers could destroy the whole thing. So what do I say? What do you think?
In the fight for liberty, you are not just fighting against the pundits and the media and the self-appointed experts who know less than the drunk down the street but can say it in polysyllabic words. You are fighting complacency. You are fighting your own first reaction of "can't we do something to stop this", and your urges to impose order on a seemingly random universe. You are fighting with your fears and your confusion.
Tomorrow when a high schooler in Denver wears a trenchcoat to school and doesn't allow the assholes to tell him that he's breaking their rules, he or she is fighting that fight with authority and with his own tendency to agree and go along with them. He or she is fighting the label imposed. Even though high school is a massive caste system boiling over with violence and horrible conformity, someone is going to break the rules. We owe that person a lot. They are upholding the rights upon which this country thrives and they are what is keeping America from becoming Nazi Germany. So if you are a high schooler in Denver wear the fucking trenchcoat. Listen to whatever you want to listen to (Rammstein, Manson, and KMFDN are kinda lame, but if you like power metal they are fun -- I've listened to them but I prefer Sinatra) and don't let the fuckers tell you what you are thinking.
It is only the high schooler in Denver, knowing that trenchcoats are banned, knowing that they are unpopular no matter how cool they may look, knowing those labels of Nazis or freaks or psychos, knowing all this forsakes the conformity and breaks the rules. It is only these high schoolers who can be proud to call themselves Americans. It is up to rest of us to pay for their class action lawsuits against the dumbfuck schools that kick them out.
Teddy Bear Cannibal Massacre
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