I have been caught in a cloud of my own personal bullshit until this tragedy hit and a lightning strike I noticed what others around me were feeling and my fathers impulse on it. I have always been for gun control ever sense I Saw bowling for columbine as a small kid but I have mostly stayed quiet because it's a tough issue to speak out on.
My name is Paul Tidwell. I'm a joe nobody out there in the world but I want to say something: I am for gun reform. I'm for a number of thing things. Ending the stigma against mental health. BEtter access to mental health and greater mental health awareness. Then there's the silly drug war that causes so much of the gun violence. THese problems have more than one root that must be dealt with But today I'm just going to address one with a littile of my own anxiety as being a schizoaffective Aspergian kid who realizes the weight and gravity of "Implicit association" has lead his social experience into some horrifying levels of isolation
But I Had to write. I couldn't say NOTHING observing how everyone was reacting. To say nothing would just leave me feeling demoralized and dead inside. I need to take my own advice and have the audacity of hope that we can rally people around change.
it would be nice to make the wrecklist for this but considering the late hour I doubt it. I might have to two post it tomorrow or rewrite based on reactions.
occupy the NRA
this is a rough draft which will of course probably be met with reform but I caught today my own father exchanging text today with my own mother about the shooting which happened to those school children in Connecticut and I saw my mother point out president obama was in tears about this issue and I thought about it myself thinking that When I broke to support the president I never voted him but I provided material support to the campaign by trying to dismantle some of the far lefts criticism of the man and encourage them to just believe this was possible instead of highlighting all the bad things he’d done over the drone war. I’m not a supporer personally of drone warfare but something has happene. My father was replying that it was a bunch of six year old kids and he was very strongly protesting “This has to stop” I’ve never seen him be so upset about something that didn’t personally affect him in his life. He of course called us to make sure we weren’t at clackamas town center when the shooting happened and my mom handed me the phone to reply to him. I had just been talking to my own own sister about how I felt the conservatives in this country have a real tendency to cynically realize but the undecided and left leaning people don’t know this but when they call about “America” they’re not referring to the LAND this country is but to everything america has come to represent to them. If america is anything but their vision of america it’s suddenly no longer recongized as the country they belong to. When they talk about how it should be they are referring to an era of personal responsibility etc that we actually never were. They think this country has shouldiered more of the burden of the populace than it really ever has. we have always been pretty dependent on the government. The bygone era they are referring to is a myth. If you look at “The way we never were” as a novel it can really dismantle it. To them america is the John Wayne Surivalist who is prepared for all things and a rugged individual and anythng but that is “anti american” and this country is slipping into being the “bizarro world america” for them. That’s why whenever I see a conservative use that term I mentally rename the word into “murica” because it reflects a lack of ability to have a grown up discussion about a lot of these issues without some people immediately and instinctively crying out that we’re trying to take their freedom away. The second amendment is always evoked in a distorted way that acts like “The right to bear arms” means “The right to obtain arms with absolutely unrestricted freedom” and that’s not true. The constition is plainly clear. Some of The populace has the right to own guns. The government has the right to regulate who has access to them. This is not expressly spelt out as the governments power but vaguely referred to in other ways within the document such that they could be taken as a metaphor for the right of the government to intervene in the economy and do things to support the general welfare of the civilization. is absolutely unimpeded access to all weapons “good for us?” If that is your point, I beg adamantly to disagree. I don’t apperciate even the sentiment of many people who act like these kinds of senseless deaths of school children in KINDERGARTEN are the “Necessary sacfices” that people want to make them out to be so that “freedom can overcome Tyranny” That people are turned into patriots and heros so that we can feel better about ourselves and justify the collateral damage is deeply disturbingto me on a profound level. I Don’t think the mothers and the people of those school children want their school children used in a cynical way and distorted into being “patriots” just so we can defend ourselves on these issues. Correct me if i’m wrong but I’m pretty sure they have a right to be infuriated and those of us who have been unfortunately involuntarily brought into it not just by these deaths but a general fear of “masked gun men” that is hyped by the media lately because we find it so disturbing even though it’s not very likely to really happen to you. But that it happens at all. At all. Is not good and everytime it does it has a generalized sense of distrust and fear and loathing that washes over our civilization simply because it happens at all. Often someone like me who is disturbed and makes many political arguments is treated with a fear just because we’re so disturbed by this stuff we could end up writing a manifesto and becoming the very thing we don’t want to be: the shooter ourselves upset about this kind of stuff. I’m often viewed myself as wavering on that edge and extreme myself but I beg adamantly to differ. How has empathetic people come to be so closely assocaited with fear because everytime we get warmth we fear what’s coming next and the payback shoe that will drop? These issues are all connected in a way to the fear of the masked gun men within our culture. Every act of Trauma and violence and all of that is connected and associated with these kind of events in the collective fears in our society. We don’t open up to others anymore because we just don’t feel safe to do so anymore. Quite a bit of this DOES have to do with the fear of hostility and conflict especially as people are attacked and torn apart for having even TRIED to make the argument for for instance closing the gun show background check loop hole and bringing back the assault weapons ban. I remember a time where everytime we stepped out for groceries we were NOT overcoming our fears of danger. Those days seem to be over. I’m not saying that we should take away our freedoms to feel better but that we should really think about the kind of world we want to live in. One that lends itself so readily to fear just so we can feel our pulse rush with “excitement” or one in which we feel safe? I don’t enjoy myself politicizing a tragedy but in my mind it’s the people who cynically make the argument AGAINST reform and try to turn the dead into “Heroes” simply for being collateral damage that are the real harborers of the status quo who always polticize the issue by trying to silence anyone who might have the audacity to speak out and have the naive hope that maybe for once, this time, we can finally discuss these issues as grown ups.
As I was walking through mcdonalds having the convo between of four of us and my father in texas I witnessed a very atractive woman and how real that feeling was and finally for the first time in years I felt like I could actually even understand on a personal level how that person might want personal space and have a distrust of strangers. I really wondered inside how that girl would have felt if she knew what I was thinking. I didn’t say anything of course.
my father though texted me back about all I was saying and said it was time to bring back his idea from my earlier tumblr. We need democrats and pro-reform people to join and get NRA memberships so we can take the organization back and get some sense into this places voting membership. It’s possible and it can be done. The only thing that stops us is the lack of audacity of hope as our president has mentioned that such is even possible
There will be those who immediately scream that if this country gives anything but unimpeded access to weapons that it is “No longer america” but you have to keep in mind. They’re not talking about this country and they’re using a slippery slope argument to say that we’re going to take the second amendment just by being for reform. THat is an argument from fear and distrust of anyone who takes a different point of view. It’s paranoid and engages in splitting. All of those of us in favor are “Black” and all of those of us against are “White” to those people. and Blacks will always of course try to take a multistepped approach to their real goal…
Except that’s not our real ambition. Our ambiition is towards sanity.
Everyone will always reply to me that if the general public did not have assault weapons that only the criminals would: my response to that is tHIS: Even criminals at least only tend to shoot other people on finalical grounds. What did it benefit anyone to mow over a crowd of school children? Those aren’t the criminals: those are the deranged. I am certain there is NO connection between the criminal underground and some sort of GAIN the wanted from this kind of senseless slaughter. Even if only CRIMINALS had access we’d All STILL be safer. At least the mob doesn’t fuck with you unless there’s something in it for them.
I realize random slaughter by masked gun men is not really all that high on the list of leading causes of death but it’s one of the easiest of all to ensure stops happening. Just because it isn’t that common isn’t a good argument AGAINST reform. An OUNCE of prevention goes a LONG way to alleviate fear.
because honestly the fear of masked gun men in our civilization FAR outweighs all rationality.
so that’s my view: If we’re so adamant about it let’s take back the NRA and one of the strongest lobbist against and turn it FOR.
I don’t think there’s one good argument to be made against anymore.
to go on waiting would be absurd. to be against would be absurd. to think ANYTHING else would be absurd
and i’m willing to face the mockery they’ll make of me for saying it myself because the rewards of having truly spoken your mind FAR outweigh the loss of having said something else. At least I Have my integrity and can sleep easier with myself for having spoken out.