A Sickness in Texas - and the Nation

Morning Joe nails it, laying the blame for the recent Texas massacres squarely at the feet of bobblehead governor Greg Abbott and his minions:

 

CNN has an excellent summary and analysis of recent Texas events here.

Chuck Todd of NBC's Meet the Press summarizes the national deadlock that makes rational change impossible:

 

For the record, I haven't blogged about the horrific recent massacres here in Texas because I simply have nothing to say.  What can anyone say, in a state, in a nation, where mass murders have become routine events?  Where they happen more often than days in the week?  Where no one is safe, from babies to the aged - and no place is safe, neither schools nor churches nor grocery stores nor anywhere else, public or private.

All that can be said has been said many, many times in the last 20 years and more.  And still the red tide flows on, higher and higher.

Nothing will change here in Texas while the fanatical idiots who control the state government absolutely refuse to lift one finger to make a difference.  You'd think the point-blank massacre of a whole classroom of little kids in Uvalde last year - with nearly 400 police officers on the scene, inexplicably doing nothing to stop the killing - would have softened even the stoniest of hearts.

But no.  Nothing moves those stinking jackasses in power, and the voters who keep them there, except fanatical hatred and self-righteousness.  Oh sure, they say they are working on "long-term solutions" - but don't believe a word of it.  They will do nothing.  They don't care who dies or how many.  

The same could be said about the powers that be in many other states, and in Congress.  Until the balance of power shifts away from the fanatical religionists, nothing will change.

But I blame the other end of the political spectrum, too.  For fifty years or more, some people on the leftward side have encouraged a culture of unlimited "free speech" and "do your own thing" that has allowed the glorification of violence and narcissism.  Step by step and bit by bit, our whole culture has become saturated with images and voices of violence and horror - brutalizing the mind and deadening the conscience of young and old alike - to say nothing of the effect on the mentally deficient.  But now good "enlightened" folk are aghast and bewildered at the state of the nation.

Why are you surprised, I would ask them.  Monkey see, monkey do.  Humans are imitative animals.

Last Christmas, M.P.'s four adult children, their spouses, and four kiddos came for dinner, the one day a year that they all pile into "Papaw's" little bungalow.  And for a few hours, I was quietly reassured to see that despite modern clothing and slang and toys, these nice young people and their kids were behaving just as parents and kids did fifty and sixty years ago at Christmas time, with glee and wonder and even good manners.  There are still good people in the world, and the ceremonies of innocence continue still.

But it seems to me that the country, and the whole Western world in fact, is simply falling apart like a rotten melon, and both sides are to blame.  The center cannot hold.  Extremism on the right or on the left is equally toxic.  Liberty is not license; and democracy is not anarchy.  

I don't care to argue the point with anyone, that's just how I see it, and from my vantage point a little apart from the crowd, I have been watching it happen all my adult life.  I know what I know.

It is a sick society that acquiesces in the slaughter of innocents.  Extremely sad.  But what can you do when are there no tears left to cry?  

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