Philosophy, Guns, and Stupidity

I recently reread Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, a book by Chuck Klosterman, in which he wrote, “Reality is a paradigm that always seems different and personal and unique, yet never really IS.”  Now Klosterman’s books are not indexed next to Sartre or Nietzsche or Hume, but his profound statement represents an entire branch of philosophy, and it exactly depicts the problems facing the world today.  (And probably every other day that has ever been in the history of humankind.)

All a person has to do is look to the “great” state of Texas, where CRAZY is an art-form.  Being a fringe, religious zealot is apparently a qualification for Texas residency.  I’m sure there are lots of nice, calm, rational people in Texas, but we certainly don’t hear about those people in the media.  Maybe those people are just as embarrassed of their fellow Texans as I am of some of my fellow Americans, but we’ll never know, because they don’t scream quite as loud and carry AK-47s to Starbucks. 

A couple months ago, Texas had a “Gathering of the American Patriot” event, where people gathered, listened to music, toted enormous automatic weapons, and bashed on the federal government.  This group has what they call “liberty issues” – in other words, the federal government is telling them what to do, and they don’t like it.  The real problem is that none of the people who were interviewed really knew exactly what they were protesting, except for the ability to carry around enormous weapons (a right which is already protected in their state). 

Anti-government ranters have these horror stories about our “reprehensible” president and his incompetent federal government (all of whom were ELECTED, by the way) who are out to take away all the things we love.  WHAT, specifically, they are taking away varies from person to person.  The problem is that PERSPECTIVE is shifting from person to person, but REALITY remains the same.  While you may have the RIGHT to carry your AK-47 into McDonald’s, that doesn’t mean you SHOULD.  Frankly, it makes other people nervous to be surrounded by twitchy people with guns.  And I am thankful for our veterans, but how many times a week do we read in the news about a veteran with PTSD killing him- or herself and taking other people out with them?  Protect your home, protect your property, but please don’t try to protect me while I’m getting takeout food.

America is nation of gun-toting xenophobes, who think that the only reality is THEIR reality, but the social contract  exists so that we can live in relative peace.  If some people are afraid of the federal government taking their freedom, why can’t they respect the freedom of those of us who don’t walk around armed and dangerous to live in a civil society?  Can’t we just all get along? 

Of course not.  That’s the point, isn’t it?  When we have pseudo-celebrities like Ted Nugent calling our president a “sub-human mongrel”, we are passed the point of civilized discussion and co-existence.  You can hate Obama all you want.  Hate everyone, if you like.  But that changes nothing about the reality of our changing nation.  It’s not 1800, and the world is changing (like it or not).  We can either embrace the change or shoot each other in the face over issues upon which we disagree. 

But Amurricah is what it is – being stupid and lazy and belligerent is what we’re known for across the globe already.  Why screw with our image?  I understand that there are things to be angry about – but bitching about kids not being able to take guns to school (yes, that’s a complaint in Texas) is fucking ridiculous. 

Like Klosterman said, “Life is rarely about what happens; it’s about what we THINK happens.”  But that doesn’t mean people should stop considering an objective reality in which all people (and their ideas) are equal.