Massacres and a failure of empathy

Liberals are describing the shooting at Newtown, Conn., as horrific, unimaginable until reality hits.  We are described as a nation in mourning. We are described as having a Culture of  Violence which must be checked.  Liberaals are right, but fail the test of empathy.

Conservatives prise what they think the 2nd Amendment means;  they include a justification for arsenals of assault weapons sas necessary to protect against a National government bent on taking away our freedom.  Conservatives may be right about the progressive loss of freedom but fail to  explain the utter futility of opposing, say, drones carrying tactual Atomic Bombs if a full-scale war were to break out against the superior Federal force.


Millions of children are massacred every year in every country except the Republic of Tuvan, Russia.  Millions more are left in shock, destitute, from the massacare of their parents.

Millions of replacement children are created every year; too many replacements, sad to say.

Millions of assault rifles and guns are used throughout the world to kill and would millions.  This chart, from

 http://www.juancole.com/2012/12/how-america-is-filling-up-itself-and-the-world-with-guns.html

shows where those weapons come from:

Made in the USA.  Home of the, er, brave.

Liberals focus only on American slaughter.   They ignore our contribution to the slaughter of the Not-Us.  If you care about anybody beyond your skin, there is no reason except an atavistic tribalism to limit the caring to one bit of land.

I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs,
dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with
the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject
to the same diseases, healed by the same means,
warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as
a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed?
if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison
us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not
revenge?

William Shakespeare, 

Merchant of Venice, Scene I  

And so it is with every race and nation.   Shakespeare wrote some years ago.  We have learned nothing.

I have been told to reason by the heart,

But heart, like head, leads helplessly;

I have been told to reason by the pulse,

And, when it quickens, alter the actions' pace

Till field and roof lie level and the same

So fast I move defying time, the quiet gentleman

Whose beard wags in Egyptian wind.

I have heard may years of telling,

And many years should see some change.

The ball I threw while playing in the park

Has not yet reached the ground.

Dylan Thomas, Should Lanterns  Shine

There are a lot of shootings, torture, maiming, dismemberment, dead bodies in our popular entertainment.  We pay a lot of money to enjoy 'em.  Are we a violent nation?

There are, in the lives I know, a lot of love, joy, hear-break, sex, sunrises and sunsets to be enjoyed, good food and lots of it, anger, forgiveness, creativity, commerce, dreams of a better world.  We may be violent but we're not only violent.

For the drooping of homes
That did not nurse our bones,
Brave deaths of only ones but never found,
Now see, alone in us,
Our own true strangers’ dust
Ride through the doors of our unentered house.
Exiled in us we arouse the soft,
Unclenched, armless, silk and rough love that breaks all rocks.

Dylan Thomas, There was a Saviour

Images of foreign children in war, to prick the shell of your indifference if any such shell have ye.  After the jump.

Children of War « Steve McCurry's Blog

Texans and Pakistani Pashtuns, prepared to defend what they hold dear at all cost;

 StarTribune.com

Randy Johnson's Pakistan Photo Gallery