I don’t want to write about it
anymore. I don’t want to have to continue to scold, cajole, or otherwise
attempt to influence the minds of others toward peace. I’m too baffled to even
begin to understand it. I don’t know or understand that level of violent hate.
I just don’t know how as a society we let it get to that. When did the immorality
of murder get so customary? We’re just used to it. Especially in Chicago. Especially
in America.
Murder. Out-right murder seems
so normal. It’s just something that happens nearly every day so why bother with
it. I mean, let’s just start The Running Man TV show already and start down
that dystopian path of least resistance. We might as well make it a damn TV
show with the potential for games and prizes. I could use a Toaster over and a
life time supply of toothpaste.
Has our blood-lust finally
gotten to us? Have we lost the ability to be outraged by things that are truly
outrageous? Has outrage become so normal that we don’t even know how to respond
to said outrageousness?
On March 5, 1770, British Army
soldiers killed five male civilians and injured six others in what would come
to be known as the Boston Massacre. It was an outrage across the American
Colonies. It inspired the American populace to say, “Enough of this tyranny”,
and take action. I get that it’s a little different today, I know these acts of
hate and terror on our soil is different than an Army being commanded in the
field, or as a police action. However,
the effect of the Boston Massacre was to galvanize young America into motion
and vigorously take steps to free themselves from the tyrannical fears of a foreign
power. American’s wanted to be free from fear. So they acted. Their outrage
inspired men and women to stand up and say they would not be bullied by fear. They
would resist any terrors thrust upon them in order to be free from those fears.
They acted.
Five men killed, six injured.
That was all it took (and some pretty healthy propagandizing I’ll admit) to
motivate a young country into action. They knew that in order to be free from
fear they had to be bold. They had to turn their outrage into something
constructive, something to build upon and create a society that could be free.
Five men killed, six injured was the call to do something about the oppression
of freedom and resist the fear of reprisals of the British.
Yesterday, June 12, 2016, 49
people were shot and killed and an additional 53 injured in Orlando, FL. There
is sadness. There are prayers. There are the lives left to be reassembled after
tragedy. There’s finger pointing. There is name calling. There is anger. In
Chicago there have already been 278 murders for 2016. Neighborhoods are upset,
scared, tired, and beat down by the onslaught of the compassionless. People
are terrified to walk their own neighborhood streets. We are scared.
Yet for all our fears, anger,
rage, sadness and astonishment, we are lacking in any real outrage. We’re sort
of used to feeling our fears, anger, rage, sadness and astonishment. We’re
almost numb to any further outrage. We don’t even remember what it was like to
be truly outraged and act upon that outrage. The outrage of racism in America
resulted in the Civil Rights Act. The Mobilization of college age men and women
taking to the streets helped end the war in Vietnam. The gay community marched
and protested just to be heard and reach some acceptance within our society.
Was that the extent of our outrage through? Have we hung a banner over the
country that reads, “Mission Accomplished”?
Are we done
with outrage as a motivator to take steps for the good of all the people? Are
American’s quitters?
I’d like to say that we are not.
We are the most able nation on the Earth to take steps toward the betterment of
us all. We can be a beacon of real Liberty in the faces of those that wish to
disarm us with fear. We’re not stupefied by the blow-hards and braggarts that
ply us with rhetoric. We’re a people dedicated to the idea that our Freedom from
fear had to be fought for and no lobby, hobbyist organization, ignorance or
hate, no single individual, lone gunman, smiling politician or any other threat
to that Liberty will be acceptable.
I know we can make the sacrifices
of the Patriots mean more than a prayer vigil and a shrug of our shoulders when
politicians say that it’s not time to have a debate about assault weapons, gun
control or the murder of our own populace through murderous indifference.
American’s have mobilized with less for great causes before. It’s time to
remember the outrage, the injustice and act. It’s time to look fear in the face
and say, “No More. Not One More”. We can overcome anything. It’s time for our
tired, exhausted outraged hearts to turn to action.
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