A Truly Alien Nation

This weekend we celebrate with family and friends our Canadian Thanksgiving. As is the custom, we reflect upon the things for which we are grateful, and duly give thanks for them. This day, I am particularly thankful for what I am not - a resident of the United States.

The benighted nation south of us, which calls itself, without a hint of irony, "the greatest country on earth," suffers from a serious rupture from reality. To me, it is an egregiously failed country, one so foreign from my experience and understanding of what constitutes a civilized and mature society that it might as well exist on a another planet. It is truly an alien nation.

In today's Star, Daniel Dales writes about the most conspicuous aspect of the United States' moral sickness: its insane gun laws which, signs suggest, are about to go even further down the rabbit hole.

Even with so many deaths and grievous injuring marring the American landscape, including the latest massacre of 58 people in Las Vegas, the full-court press to make guns even more accessible proceeds apace:

This year, for example, Missouri Republicans allowed people to carry guns without obtaining a permit. Georgia Republicans allowed permit-holders to carry on college campuses. Ohio Republicans allowed gun licence holders to carry their guns at daycares that don’t put up No Guns signs and to store their guns in their cars on school property.

Before the Las Vegas shooting, House Republicans had been pushing a bill to make it easier to buy gun silencers [the euphemistically-titled Hearing Protection Act] . They have now delayed that effort a second time. The first delay came after a shooter attacked party congressmen on a baseball field in nearby Virginia — which, tellingly, prompted some to talk about loosening gun laws, for self-defence.

While a few states have slightly tighted rules, most are embracing, even extolling, looser restriction:

Charles Heller, a spokesperson for the Arizona Citizens Defense League, a gun rights group, said Arizona has passed “58 positive bills, signed by three governors, over 13 years.” He is pushing for more — such as a law allowing people with gun licences to bypass metal detectors at government buildings, as at the Texas state capitol, and a law making it legal to brandish a gun against assailants who have not yet caused physical harm.

Americans, it seems, have become inured to statistical evidence of the carnage caused by guns:

More than 33,000 Americans were killed by guns in 2014 — more than 90 per day. In 2015, the Washington Post found, 23 children were shot every day. Almost two-thirds of the gun deaths were suicides, which tend to receive the least attention.

One always reads that the main obstacle to passing laws controlling and restricting these weapons of mass destruction is the NRA. Of that I am not so certain. Sure, that dark organization has an almost unlimited war chest when it comes to influencing and buying legislators, but I doubt its agenda could reign supreme without one other element: a citizenry so deeply flawed, so deeply divided and so deeply fearful of their neigbours that only brute force and personal arsenals can offer a balm to their deeply, deeply debased psyches.

Looking Into The Abyss: A Guest Post By Pamela MacNeil

Yesterday, my post consisted of three letters culled from a larger series by Star readers reflecting on the dire state of both the U.S. Republican Party and American society. Pamela MacNeil, always an insightful commentator, offered some very interesting observations about both. I am featuring them here as a guest post:

I listened to a JFK speech the other day Lorne. If you're interested, you can find it at #NoWar2016 and what Kennedy said, WorldBeyondWar.org. Some people consider it his greatest speech and some even think it's what contributed to his assassination.

The speech was about PEACE. Why do I bring this up? Strictly for contrasts. Compare this speech with Trump's nomination speech. Implicitly, both speeches are a reflection of American culture. Kennedy's speech reflects a culture that was serious about ideas, where an intelligent President could articulate how a viable option of peace over the cold war could be achieved. Trumps speech reflects a culture that is intellectually and morally bankrupt. It contains no serious ideas and in fact sounds more like something that would be said at a marketing or business meeting. More importantly it reveals a culture not only in decline, but a culture intellectually having reached rock bottom where all that dominates is faith and force. American culture has gone from the political sophistication and the pursuit of progressive ideals of a JFK to the anti-intellectual rhetoric and sleaze of a Donald Trump.

The GOP with its Evangelical and neoliberal beliefs reflects a culture of power and entitlement. They do not bring anything beneficial to the table for the average American. They are political zombies. Having no political ideas, they need a leader who reflects that lack. Anyone with political substance and intelligence, or even common sense, would completely avoid the GOP. They would feel embarrassed to be associated with this mindless group called the GOP. Donald Trump feels no such embarrassment.

Do Americans ever wonder why they once had an intellectually sophisticated president such as JFK and now have a presidential candidate whose character is that of a P.T. Barnum barker?

Who is responsible for the American cultural and political destruction? Why have Americans stood by and watched their governments, both Democrats and Republicans, turn their country into an ignorant war monger that wants to dominate the world?

Going from a political culture under JFK to a political culture under Trump is like going from super sonic jet travel back to the horse and buggy.

An empire in decline and with its nuclear weapons one that could take the rest of the world with it.

Americans don't seem to know it, but they are looking into a cultural abyss.