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.

Israel in a frenzy; Palestine, just another day

The Israeli newspapers report, with great alarm, that only 53 percent of the Jews have gas masks.  Read Israel's Iran Itch from yesterday's New Your Times..

A question:  are there gas masks for the many Palestinians living in territory controlled by the Jews?  Do the Palestinians have bomb shelters?

DON’T BOMB IRAN!

The blood of Palestinians will be on your hands, unto the seventh generation.

For unintended consequences, consider the Merchant of Venice, Act 3 Scene I.  Read “Arab” for “Jew.”  For “Christian” read “Jew"

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 notrevenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will
resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian,
what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian
wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by
Christian example? Why, revenge. The villany youteach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I
will better the instruction.

Pictures of some Palestinians living in territory controlled by Israel who may die, burn, be torn limb from limb, smashed to smithereens, split all ends up, if Israel bombs Iran and there is retaliation:

NDER the wide and starry sky, 

Dig the grave and let me lie. 

Glad did I live and gladly die, 

And I laid me down with a will. 

This be the verse you grave for me: 

Here he lies where he longed to be; 

Home is the sailor, home from the sea, 

And the hunter home from the hill.

The Gaza Beach, to be turned 

into another Waikiki,

 when peace break out.

The Israeli soldier and the Palistinian kids

 he os so valiantly guarding:  all dust and ashes

The olive otreees, no atelling how old, 

burned with their human friendss

Just a guy, but a guy no more

A way to while aaway the time.

No, no, another Hussein;

 and one for whom I feel great aaffection

A Palistinian football team.  Football, of course.

Shall we dance? 

On a bright cloud of music shall we fly? 

Shall we dance? 

Shall we then say "Goodnight and mean "Goodbye"? 

Or perchance, 

When the last little star has left the sky, 

Shall we still be together 

With are arms around each other 

And shall you be my new romance?