Sick of the faux piety and crocodile tears.

These were the kindest things I could think of to say on Facebook, in light of an increasing stream of sanctimonious bullshit regarding the oh so obvious conclusion that the proper response to the Sandy Hook disaster is to do more of what made it inevitable it in the first place.  (There is a whole lot I did not post.)

In rereading for documenting here, I notice that I made several uncharacteristic writing errors, which is probably just due to being nearly debilitated by simple fury.  (Such are painful to look at, but I haven't edited them here.)  I don't know whether such an observation is a bona fide that I've still got my humanity intact, or proof that I need to work on maintaining a clearer head in the face of an exasperating stupidity that is in no way original or new.  Hopefully, both.

Anyway, the first thing I managed was this:

As the well-oiled machine gears up to capitalize yet again on an event of the most wrenching sort of horror, most will once again miss the most important takeaway of all: law, and the cultural conditioning that it promotes, has failed--again--to protect the innocent. I've already heard (and of course will continue to hear) much regurgitated boilerplate about more law, more enforcement, more of a ll the sort of things that have already been tried hundreds and thousands of times before. The sort of things that were already in place in Connecticut, and--QED--failed to protect the innocent, again.

This machine is horribly effective, and we'll probably get new "law" out of it, while failing to do anything constructive. Again.

To achieve a different result, we'd have to do something...different. 

Today, I felt compelled to vent the following:

Americans are (somewhat justly) ridiculed the world over for not thinking through the problem they are so outwardly sure they know how to cure. And so it is hardly surprising to see so many otherwise intelligent people tripping over themselves to line up in support of the ridiculous idea of applying even more of what didn't work this time, in the nearly religious faith that it simply must work next time, because...well, because their hearts are sick, and they want it to be that way.

What this is, is infuriating. And it has nothing to do with some ridiculous prurience of some people hanging on to a hobby, either: the sickness is in our THINKING. Thinking that the proper response to a disaster in which one law-breaker has his murderous way with a whole clutch of law-abiders, flying in the face of multiple simultaneous laws, is to apply...more law. WTF?

Look: is the goal to protect innocent life? If it is--if in fact it really is more important to you than anything else--then it is more important than the rule of law. And you need to recognize that if your first reaction to such a disaster is "bad man shouldn't have", that you fail the test. It doesn't matter that "bad man shouldn't have". Bad man DID have. What are you going to do about it then, here, right now?

This is not a question most people are willing contemplate. But the truth does not require your consent. On the other hand, "the law" is an ever-available absolution fantasy.

You can line up to pass more law all you want. The result, like all that came before it, will fail, and more will die because they put their faith in your legal promise of protection.

You want to know what breaks my heart? THAT DOES.

"These are the times that try men's souls."  Roger that, brother.