I fear Americans value their guns higher than the lives of their children

One of the persistent themes of this blog is that you get what you vote for. Another is that we are characterised and known by our fruits. What we do is far more revealing than what we say. That is the empirical approach, we are a reflection of our experiences, both individually and collectively, they both define us and reflect who we are as individuals and societies. Yesterday was the 14th of February, Valentine's Day, and we witnessed what was obviously an attempt to replicate the original St Valentines Day massacre, the eighteenth shooting in an American school this year - that's eighteen shootings in six weeks involving children, on average one every sixty hours. Eight of those shootings involved injury or death. In the case of mass shootings such as that in Florida, those teachers and children targeted will mostly be complete strangers to the perpetrators of these atrocities, people who have an unlimited, unrestricted and unregulated access to guns, the wet dream of every free marketeer. If what occurred is not a definition of terror, a deliberate attempt by an extravagantly armed person to murder as many unarmed people as possible, for no particular motive other than a desire to kill, then I no longer understand the English language, but the American authorities refuse to relate such activity to terrorist motivations. Terrorism only applies to foreigners, particularly those from Islamic countries. According to this mindset, conditions do not exist in the US to foster terrorism, it is a foreign import. It could be the British Tory Party that is speaking, the racist xenophobic mentality is exactly the same. As with the 45 and the Republicans, they are incapable of accepting that the conditions that lead to such things are home grown, fostered by their policies and rhetoric. I watched a report on CNN recently that highlighted that the US Department of Homeland Security published figures that show that 73% of all such terroristic events in the USA since the election of the 45 have been carried out by those who are characterised as white supremists. These events are never categorised are terrorist activities, they are normally passed off as lone wolf vigilantes with mental health disorders, exactly the explanation forwarded by the 45 once again on this occasion, indeed the 45 has a tendency to defend white supremists by persistently demonising other groups and painting the white supremists as victims, as he said, there are good people on both sides. Those poor white supremists are just good old boy patriots who are draining the swamp in their own inimitable way.

I have come to the conclusion that we need a new political category for analysis, the politics of shamelessness. In any civilised nation were such a thing to happen the authorities would immediately seek to prevent such an occurrence ever happening again, but American authorities resolutely refuse to impose any regulation on the sale or control of firearms, indeed, whilst they appear on television crying their crocodile tears for the victims of atrocities the 45 and his Republican Party are reportedly seeking to actually loosen the extremely liberal restrictions already in place and actually want to make it easier to carry concealed weapons across state lines. Thus we can logically conclude that they do not in fact give a damn about those who have been gunned down so callously. They have no shame. We had an incident like that in Dunblane in Scotland, fortunately we have never had another because public opinion forced the Tory government to take measures against gun ownership. I recall the 45 promising the NRA that he would oppose any limits on gun ownership during his campaign for the presidency. American politicians are indeed shameless as they watch the frequent shooting of their constituents children whilst promoting the expansion of the weapons they are being shot with.

One of the underlying causes of this situation is the perverted philosophy of individualism that flourishes in the United States and was enthusiastically embraced by the Blessed Margaret and her disciples. This false concept then leads to a perverted understanding of the concept of freedom, because the notion of the freedom of the individual cannot be properly understood without an understanding of the individual as a social animal. If you base your policy agenda on the false hypothesis of an atomised individual then you must produce a flawed policy because it is predicated on a false conclusion. As I have repeatedly noted in my blog, the notion of the atomised individual is a fiction, indeed an impossibility. For example, the philosopher Thomas Hobbes states that: "Liberty, or freedom, signifies, properly, the absence of opposition; by opposition, I mean external impediments of motion. A freeman is he; that in those things, which by his strength and wit he is able to do, is not hindered to do what he has a will to do." That is simply wrong. This false concept was then expanded by Jeremy Bentham who took Hobbes’s principle further by arguing that “liberty is the silence of the law.” Indeed Bentham states that “every law is an evil, because every law is a violation of liberty; so that government, I say again, can only choose between evils”

This is a call for unlimited and unrestricted liberty which makes no sense at all. Freedom is not an unlimited resource as your exercise of freedom must almost certainly be at the expense on another's freedom. This is an argument that is far too complex for a blog such as this. However, if anyone wishes to have me explain my approach to freedom I will happily email you it if you simply contact me on doktorkommirat@gmail.com. It beggars belief that American society can allow the present system relating to guns and their lack of regulation to continue. However, I have been hearing people saying that all of my adult life, and nothing ever changes except that it gets worse. If the Tories could get away with it we would have the same situation in this sorry nation, so I am not claiming any form of moral high ground here. Thatcher and Reagan's dreams of effectively destroying their respective societies are coming to fruition, you have been warned.

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat