America’s Twisted Notion of Freedom

[marmar]

from Consortium News:


America’s Twisted Notion of Freedom
July 22, 2012

In America, “freedom” now means the right to inflict harm on the community, whether it’s the freedom of Wall Street bankers to gamble recklessly, the freedom of the rich to shut factories and off-shore jobs or the freedom to swagger around with deadly weapons. That freedom has struck again in Colorado, writes Lawrence Davidson.

By Lawrence Davidson


Well here we go again. Late in the evening of July 20, “a masked gunman entered a Colorado movie theater playing the new Batman movie and “opened fire … killing at least 12 people and wounding 50.” The gunman was not a large anthropomorphized bat but rather a young white male, and he “was armed with a rifle, a shotgun and two handguns” all of which he had legally obtained.

This is nothing new in the Land Of The Free. Among the more notable victims of the nation’s love affair with deadly weapons have been Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley, John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Ronald Reagan (wounded) and, of course, John Lennon.

Then there are the recent (and periodically ongoing) mass murders among the population at large: the Columbine High School shootings, the Beltway sniper incidents, the Virginia Tech massacre, and the 2011 Tucson killings. To this can be added the daily shootings that occur in every city in the country. Taking the representative year of 2007, there were 31,224 deaths from gunshots with 17,352 of them (56 percent) being suicides. The numbers have, generally, been going up.

Those who stand against tightening up the nation’s presently useless gun laws have a variety of arguments most of which are in good part delusional. Thus:

1. EXCUSE NUMBER ONE – Guns don’t kill people, people kill people. .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://consortiumnews.com/2012/07/22/americas-twisted-notion-of-freedom/

[madinmaryland]

1. This definitely deserves a DU Rec and Kick.

[indepat]

2. In Amerika, the freedom to pack heat and stand your ground trumps all other

freedoms, including right of others to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness: to wit, all the George Zimmerman wannabees out there effectively have a 00 license.

[Mosaic]

3. Freedom to be a paranoid evil person

Basically. In my faith these demons will burn forever.

[Zoeisright]

4. BRAVO!!!

One of the most sane and reasoned pieces I have ever read on this disturbing issue.

[robk6295sie]

5. excellent article.