"Perhaps the greatest Original Sin of American culture is contempt. Contempt, allied with ignorance, and warmed up with frustration and anger, seems to me that it is the cause of our pandemic of mass killings in the American public spaces and in private."
We need to go back, or try to find, the foundations of our contempt, frustration, and anger, because those are the outcomes of informational input or some inherent, early-on misunderstandings. If a person is angry, he has a reason; bogus as it may be objectively, it resonates with him. For example, "I tried to stop election proceedings because the president told us that it was stolen from him. So, yes, I'm mad as hell about that," and naive enough to believe it.
Every response has a stimulus. What's egging on these people? The most obvious answer is lies, well-done, effective propaganda broadcast almost constantly for decades. Such work to foment violence. Thus, unfettered freedom of speech has a serious downside; as the cliche rightly has it: With freedom comes responsibility. In this case, the responsibility to always speak truly; to fail to do so, should be prohibited, stopped, and penalized. Until then, gasoline will continue to be poured onto our blazing national firestorm.
[steps down from his soapbox with great, silent dignity as his audience thinks, This guy needs to get a life; I wonder if he's ever had a girlfriend]
"Perhaps the greatest Original Sin of American culture is contempt. Contempt, allied with ignorance, and warmed up with frustration and anger, seems to me that it is the cause of our pandemic of mass killings in the American public spaces and in private."
We need to go back, or try to find, the foundations of our contempt, frustration, and anger, because those are the outcomes of informational input or some inherent, early-on misunderstandings. If a person is angry, he has a reason; bogus as it may be objectively, it resonates with him. For example, "I tried to stop election proceedings because the president told us that it was stolen from him. So, yes, I'm mad as hell about that," and naive enough to believe it.
Every response has a stimulus. What's egging on these people? The most obvious answer is lies, well-done, effective propaganda broadcast almost constantly for decades. Such work to foment violence. Thus, unfettered freedom of speech has a serious downside; as the cliche rightly has it: With freedom comes responsibility. In this case, the responsibility to always speak truly; to fail to do so, should be prohibited, stopped, and penalized. Until then, gasoline will continue to be poured onto our blazing national firestorm.
[steps down from his soapbox with great, silent dignity as his audience thinks, This guy needs to get a life; I wonder if he's ever had a girlfriend]