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Showing posts with label Rousseau. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rousseau. Show all posts

Thursday, March 21, 2013

The Most Irresponsible People I Have Ever Seen

When I arrived at school today, the office staff was buzzing. There was a shooting at a school in New Prague, a city 45 miles south of the Twin Cities. Everyone began checking and refreshing their smart phones. The next bit of news we got was that there were hospital staging areas being set up. The principal sent out an email saying that it wouldn't be long before the students started getting texts from their parents making sure they were OK. Our instructions were to tell them that our school was safe and to focus on getting their work done. It was a tense few minutes.

Thankfully, it turned out to be a prank call by a 12 year old and no one was hurt. Yet, this incident is what educators and their support staff now have to deal with every day. People that don't work in a school simply have no idea what runs through your head when something like this happens or even if it is just your standard lock down drill. The simple fact that we have to do it is a really disgusting statement on our culture. Adding to the nausea is that our country is effectively being held hostage by the most irresponsible people I have ever seen: the gun lobby and their supporters. Their view of the American people is FUBAR.

I say this because these are the same people who claim that because human beings are, by nature, corrupt, we should never trust them with the responsibility to govern. They whine like little babies about liberals and how the left's embrace of Jean Jacques Rousseau's social contract is naive and ultimately destructive. Yet, when it comes to guns, suddenly (as if out of someone's ass) people are very responsible and it's, "Fuck you, don't take my gun, Hitler!!"

The irony here is that gun right supporters are fully embracing Rousseau's concept of the general will, whether they want to admit it or not. Recall that Rousseau posited that the general will of the people was to embrace their natural state of liberty and freedom. Any sort of collective action would always be good and further the rights of the individual. In the case of gun rights, it's the second amendment. People will always be responsible and act in their best interests because the general will dictates that liberty must preserved.

Even though today's incident resulted in no injuries nor fatalities, it illustrates just how irresponsible people can be. Most people can't be trusted with a phone let alone a gun. What does that say about the gun lobby and supporters who place so much faith in the American people who continually shit all over them every day with thousands of gun deaths every year? Interestingly, I think that gun supporters were onto something when they suggest we adopt a system that is similar to Israel's gun laws. No one is prohibited from owning a gun but if you want to own one, you have to prove that you can be responsible with one. In fact, I'd go as far to say that would include any gun, automatic or semi-automatic. Go through all the necessary training, mental tests and background checks...all of which will be checked on a regular basis...and you are free to build yourself an arsenal if you so desire.

In short, don't ban the guns (the supply), ban some of the people (the demand). They are not, by nature, responsible nor are they good.