By Dan Calabrese ——Bio and Archives--February 16, 2018
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The problem is that no one knows a way to do it, or is even sure if there is a way to do it. We make efforts all the time to prevent people from doing bad things. Schools have assemblies and preach against bullying. Bullies are not deterred. We air public service announcements that express the horrors of drunk driving. Drunks still get behind the wheel. It's not that we shouldn't try, and it's not that no one is deterred. Some may be. But the moral drivers behind abject evil, or simple irresponsibility, usually don't respond that well to earnest, helpful reminders to do the right thing. The fact that we all have to live with people who would do such things in our midst is a regrettable fact of life, but it has been this way since the dawn of time.
It's understandable, when the evil manifests as horrifyingly as it did in Las Vegas, that we would feel like, damn it, we should do something. The emotion tells you to look at the guns, look at mental health services . . . look at something. Anything. Don't rest until we've ensured that this will never happen again. People make vows like that at times like this. But just because you'd like something done doesn't mean there's something to do, and more to the point, it doesn't necessarily mean there's something for you to do. Even if you're the government, which the child in us wants to believe can make bad things go away if it only has enough political will, or enough money.We have laws against drunk driving. People drink and drive. We have laws against smoking pot and against entering the country illegally, and people get upset if you actually try to enforce those laws even though they're already on the books. We have laws against speeding, driving slow in the left lane, riding your bike on the sidewalk and having open containers in your car. People them all, all the time. Are you comparing those things to mass murder, you jerk?
But the failure to act on the instant background check and bump-stock bills underscored that even on the most modest of gun measures, Congress is simply incapable of a response. What was striking in the aftermath of the carnage at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School is that, now, even the victims and survivors are willing to call their leaders out.
“My message to lawmakers in Congress is please, take action,” David Hogg, a student at the school, said as he looked directly into CNN’s camera on Thursday. “Any action at this point instead of just complete stagnancy and blaming the other side of the political aisle would be a step in the right direction,” he added. Melissa Falkowski, a teacher at the school, told CNN, “It’s very emotional because I feel today like our government, our country, has failed us and failed our kids and didn’t keep us safe.”Here is what you're missing in this whole thing: Evil is spiritual first and cultural second. It is not caused by politics and it is not solved by politics. Yesterday I spent nearly 13 hours on a freeway. At one point, a man was tailgaiting me rather obnoxiously. I moved over to let him by as quickly as I could, but not quickly enough, it would appear, given the gesture he offered as he went on by. We proceeded to watch him do the exact same thing to at least two other people, one of whom we saw mouthing the words, "What the hell" after the guy zoomed past him. This guy had an angry spirit before he got behind the wheel. My wife told me a story she'd read of a woman seated on a plane near a small baby. The baby wasn't even crying but the woman went into a loud, foul-mouthed rage over the mere possibility she might have to listen to crying during the flight - thus turning herself into something far more obnoxious than any baby could possibly be, and earning an ejection from the flight from the very flight attendant she targeted with F-bombs and the like.
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Dan Calabrese’s column is distributed by HermanCain.com, which can be found at HermanCain
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