It’s All Right, Ma. I’m Only Bleeding
March 25th, 2009 by Syd
You lose yourself, you reappear
You suddenly find you got nothing to fear
Alone you stand with nobody near
When a trembling distant voice, unclear
Startles your sleeping ears to hear
That somebody thinks
They really found you.
A question in your nerves is lit
Yet you know there is no answer fit to satisfy
Insure you not to quit
To keep it in your mind and not fergit
That it is not he or she or them or it
That you belong to.
- Bob Dylan
I’m not adjusting to this new reality very well. Obamaworld is a strange place indeed. I feel disoriented and disappointed. I’m not really sure what to say or which way to go. That’s the reason I haven’t had much to say lately.
You see, I’m angry. Of course I’m angry at what the Obamatrons threaten to do to our civil rights, but I’m angry too at the Bush Republicans. They screwed up by the numbers, starting with the mistaken justification of the war in Iraq, and on to the perversely named “Patriot Act,” the Department of Homeland Insecurity that probably has me classified as a dangerous subversive by now, the botched rebuilding of Iraq, the failure to capture Bin Laden, the mismanagement of the financial system… the list just goes on and on. The failures of the Bush administration and its congressional rubber-stamp leadership have put us in this position. The people were so angry by the time the election came around that I think the Democrats could have run Brittany Spears for president and won. I’m angry. I’m angry at just about everyone.
I have spent the past twenty five years working for the cause of gun rights. Now, I’m faced with the specter of watching everything that we have worked for turned back and dismantled by the newly empowered nanny-staters. It’s infuriating.
This was an ominous portent:
In Thursday’s ruling, Federal District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly issued the preliminary injunction against the Department of the Interior rule that took effect on January 9, 2009. The revised rule allowed individuals to carry concealed firearms for self-defense in national parks and national wildlife refuges located in states that allow the carrying of concealed firearms.
I’m sure this is just the first of a long series of setbacks we will face. A new “assault weapons ban” is already in the works and it will be a whole lot worse than the last one. Our new attorney general was the Clinton administration’s point man on gun control and I expect plenty of fun and games out of him – you know, the guy who accused us of being a nation of racial cowards right after we elected the first African-American president. That same jerk, Eric Holder, is also in charge of the ATF. I can hardly wait.
So, I’m considering my options:
-
Denial: Pretend that John McCain won the election.
My sense of reality is a bit too strong for this one. -
Insurrection: Form a militia unit and die in a hail of gunfire in a few weeks.
Doesn’t really sound like a whole lot of fun. -
Convert to Socialism: Have a red star tattooed on my butt.
Not really my style. -
Keep on Keeping On:
The only real choice.
There’s another thing that makes me crazy: just when I get my motivation together to rejoin the fight, some “failed personality” kills ten innocent people in Alabama, or a preacher in Illinois, or four cops in Oakland. Every time one of these incidents happen, our job gets more difficult. For those of us who support armed self defense, these events simply confirm the need for us to be armed. Yet, for a growing number of people, a simple if flawed logic prevails: if they didn’t have the guns, they couldn’t do these things. I sense that the political will is growing to put in place far more stringent forms of gun control in response to these incidents. The National Firearms Act of 1934 and the Gun Control Act of 1968 were political responses to high-profile gun mayhem. It can happen again.
In my town, it seems that almost every night there is another killing. Most of these crimes are done with illegal guns, and most of the perps and victims are young African Americans. This scenario plays out daily in all of our urban centers. The carnage is senseless, tragic and happening on a large scale. Two days ago, a young black woman was gunned down in broad daylight in a city park with lots of people around her. Was she a crack dealer or gangster? No, under pressure from a judge, she had agreed to testify in a murder trial about another shooting she had witnessed last year. People are getting tired of this kind of thing and it’s happening way too often. It may not be right, and it may violate the Constitution, but if people get frightened enough, they can do some wrong and irrational things.
I haven’t changed my stance on anything, and I certainly haven’t sold my rifle, but I will confess that I have grown tired of defending “assault weapons” in the face of these horrendous crimes. With each successive horror, the constitutional argument seems weaker, and I fear that the day will come that people will stop listening to it altogether. Actually, that day may have already arrived. I believe that the only thing which stays the hand of the new administration is that the financial crisis is far more urgent. The new administration must succeed in turning the economy around or its credibility is down the toilet. They know they cannot afford a gun control fight right now. That’s the only thing standing between us and a gun control act of 2009, the likes of which we would have not thought possible only a few short years ago.
So, that’s what I dealing with, thinking about and struggling with. That’s why I have been so quiet of late (and also, I’m susceptible to burn-out). Where to go, what tone to take, what picture of the future should be guiding me – these are the questions which bring me to the word processor but leave me staring at a blank page. I hope I’ll achieve some clarity, but I can’t say it has happened yet.
Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child’s balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying.
Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn
Suicide remarks are torn
From the fool’s gold mouthpiece
The hollow horn plays wasted words
Proves to warn
That he not busy being born
Is busy dying.
[…] Syd’s back Syd is back blogging… saying it’s alright Ma, I’m only bleeding. […]
Talk about it, let it out. You’ll feel better. Record it so we can all get another podcast from you.
Good to have you back Syd!
Syd,
Well said. It is more important than ever to promote responsible ownership of weapons. Disputes about parking spaces that end in gunfire discredit all of us. We must be more vigilant about defending our rights by remaining even more exemplary in the proper use of our weapons.
Gary
You said ” Most of these crimes are done with illegal guns” . I for one am unwilling to cede this point and suspect you mis spoke . My supposition is most of the killings were done by prohibited persons with entirely legal guns . Seemingly small point i know , but when we use the term ” illegal gun ” we cede ground to the antis by seemingly to agree that some guns are or should be illegal to own .
Welcome back to blogging btw .
Well, yes and no. I meant shootings by people prohibited from possessing guns and also guns obtained by illegal means, guns used as a part of a criminal enterprise, illegally modified guns and unlicensed Class III stuff. But, your point is well taken.
Well said, I feel a lot of frustration also. I have a hard time expressing myself to people around me that aren’t use to gun talk so it seems foreign to them. Next thing you know they stop listening and you can’t reason with that. I try to take the common sense that I hear and see and go from there. Welcome back!
Good to have you back, my friend.
Glad to see you back and blogging.
Your thoughts are right on target. It is getting very hard to defend the “assault weapons” when someone is getting gunned down every night in “The Ville.” The woman in the park was actually shot in broad daylight!!! Many witnesses were in the area and her boyfriend sat next to her as she was executed.
Shades of Juarez. Our culture has abandoned the ethical and moral principles that at one time made this the greatest country in the world.
whw
Keep the faith Syd. There are millions that feel exactly like you do. We have to believe that eventually reason and sanity will return to this great country.
I’ve got to question your supposition that we had the wrong reasons for going to war in Iraq. For those that don’t remember, here’s a basic rundown:
1. Iraq invades Kuwait. Now, you can argue all you want about things we did that may have caused Hussein to think that we wouldn’t mind if he did this, but he did it and that’s the important part.
2. Kuwait calls on the US, with whom they have an agreement that they will sell us oil and we will help defend them, to have us come kick some Iraqi butt.
3. We go kick some Iraqi butt.
4. How far we should have gone is debatable, but regardless we got a signed surrender from Hussein that spelled out certain terms and conditions that he had to follow to prevent us from coming back and finishing the job. Among these were the documenting of all of his weapons of mass destruction and his WMD programs and the dismantling of same with inspectors verifying compliance.
5. When Slick Willy got in office, Hussein started to refuse to allow the inspectors to inspect. Clinton said “Don’t stop my inspectors or I’ll tell you not to stop them again… and I mean it!”
6. With that threat staring him in the face, Saddam decided that inspectors really didn’t need to inspect anything.
Now, what do we do? For eight Clinton years we’ve shown the whole world, and especially the Muslim extremist world, that we are weak and unwilling to stand up to even a country that we had just finished beating in battle. For some strange reason, this gives them the idea that flying planes into buildings would be really entertaining and it would be even more fun to watch as we cringed in fear.
So, Bush starts insisting that inspectors be allowed to, you know, inspect. He gives Iraq plenty of time (probably way too much time) to live up to their surrender terms- or else. Of course, they’ve heard “or else” from Clinton and we all know how scary it was when he said it.
At some point, you’ve got to either just walk away and confirm for the world that you have no integrity, no courage, no principles, and no strength or you’ve got to live up to your word and enforce the contract.
The first time that Hussein told the inspectors that they couldn’t go into a building, that building should have turned into a crater overnight. Every time they got turned away, that facility should have been destroyed as a probable location of activities prohibited by the terms of his surrender. If Clinton had the integrity and courage to do this, we never would have had to go back in. Unfortunately, that was not the case.
We had to go in the first time because we gave our word to Kuwait that we would. We had to go back because we gave our word to Iraq that we would. Either we are a country of honor and integrity or we aren’t. There are countries out that whose word doesn’t mean much. I don’t want to live in one of those places.
The justification of the war, the claim that Iraq had stockpiles of WMD, made the Bush administration look incompetent. Does America invade a sovereign nation on a mistake?
I think we had ample reason and justification for going into Iraq, and I don’t disagree with anything you have said here. I could probably add to your list things such as the multiple and egregious treaty violations following the first gulf war.
My issue is gun rights and those who further my cause are my friends and those who don’t, aren’t. The Bush administration, through its bungling of a wide range of tasks, has so weakened the larger conservative movement that we now find ourselves at an extreme disadvantage.