The Dark Knight Rises

In theory, of course, anarchy sounds good to many people.  No rules.  Do whatever you want.  Take what you think you’ve been denied in life.

                During my screening of The Dark Knight Rises, there is a scene when the people of Gotham go into the wealthy people’s homes and ransack everything, and one of the actors says something about how everything belongs to everyone now.  And the ignorant douche-nozzle behind us in the theater said, “this is Obama’s socialism plan.”

                Are you fucking kidding me?

                It was all I could not to turn around and ask him if he even knew how to define the word socialism.  It is people’s blatant disregard for reality and facts that makes America the declining nation that it is today.  People choose to live in their selected reality rather than in ACTUAL reality.  They redefine words based on the most effective social impact, and they manipulate words and events to reflect their own agendas.  It happens on the macro level of political discourse and on the micro level of interpersonal relationships.  It’s repulsive.  As Holden Caulfield would declare, “they’re all a bunch a goddam phonies.”  We all are.

                America may be ONE OF the greatest countries on earth, but it is not hands-down, unerringly THE GREATEST country on earth.  The simple-minded devotion some Americans have to professing their dominance and superiority over and above every other country on earth is embarrassing to me.  Why not fixate on trying to improve America rather than pompously orate about how much better we are than everyone else?  Personally, I don’t need to think I live in the greatest country on the planet; I’d just like to celebrate those things we do well and develop those things which need work.  Does that make me un-American?  Not hardly. 

                I think I can be patriotic and wonder why guy from Colorado was legally allowed to purchase THOUSANDS of rounds of ammunition online without a single hiccup.  I think I can be patriotic and say that it’s a bad idea for people to be able to buy semiautomatic weapons, because the ONLY thing those guns do is kill people.  You kill a deer with a semiautomatic weapon.  If you’re a REAL hunter, you’re out there with a bow and arrow.  Same argument for the 9mm.  I understand people’s desire to protect themselves, but in no way did the founding fathers of the United States of America foresee those kinds of weapons in the hands of ordinary citizens who might walk into a crowded midnight showing of a movie and gun down helpless people.  That kind of mindless pandering to the NRA is inexcusable.

                The story of Batman is such a simple, beautiful expressive of humanity.  Those who choose to live their lives in the service of others are few and far between, and they face near constant barriers.  Random acts of kindness could revolutionize the world, but they are so few and far between.  Like Bruce Wayne says at the end of the movie, sometimes it’s the simple act of placing a jacket over a child’s shoulders that makes all the difference.  Start small, and the big things will ensue.  No need for a nuclear weapon to change the world.