What is Wrong With America?

Democratic institutions continue to break down as the United States is becoming a more dysfunctional society. More and more people are repudiating the cultural norms which have held the country together since its inception. America was founded on a set of beliefs and values which, although they were not equally applied and available to all people, were the seeds from which America grew. While the Founding Fathers did not interpret the notion that “all men are created equal” in a universal sense for all people, over the past 240 years or more the nation has evolved, frequently struggling to achieve equality although sometimes backsliding. The first decades of the 21st Century, however, have demonstrated a greater and greater rejection by a growing portion of the nation, of the country’s institutions, norms, and culture. This change is what immediately comes to mind—beyond the horrific human tragedy—as one considers the unspeakable murders that occurred yesterday in Texas.

What is wrong with America when one gets beyond paying lip service to the slaughter and praying for the lost, the wounded, and their families, is that leaders of country cannot rise up as one and say enough of the gun violence—period. There is a gross failures of America’s political leaders to demonstrate that despite the personal political costs they are prepared to act. They need to face their children and grandchildren and tell them that no longer can 18-year-olds walk into a gun store and buy an assault weapon with hundreds of rounds of ammunition.

Politicians can stand up to the power of the business community, the gun lobbyists, and the misguided constitutional law experts. Congress has done it before. Americans now “buckle-up” and no one remembers a time when people did not wear seatbelts—except in old Hollywood movies. Smoking was ever-present in society but somehow the tobacco farmers and the cigarette manufacturers did not disappear when Congress moved to restrict tobacco advertisements. How many House or Senate Members can attribute their defeat to voting in favor of reduced speed limits on highways or providing food for babies. Are guns really so sacrosanct in America that politicians cannot recognize what their failure to act is doing to this country?

The problem in the U.S. is that the dysfunctionality that is prevalent in the glorification of guns, is manifested elsewhere within the body politic and especially among many of its misguided leaders. There are other polarizing issues which demonstrate how widespread this malaise is in the United States. When polls show that almost 70% of Americans favor a woman’s right to choose, why is the Senate unable to take a procedural vote to “consider” legislation to permit abortions under certain circumstances? Members are elected to act and to go on record not to crawl behind arcane rules when serious issues are before the Congress. How can the Congress persist in tolerating the existence of voting restrictions when the right to vote should be available to all citizens?

At the same time, what is wrong with the American character and culture that the use of weapons is tolerated in America? The United States evolved from a very similar background as most Western European democracies; yet none of these countries have a gun problem. Europeans are subjected to terrorist incidents, even waves of such attacks; but most of them are perpetrated by foreigners with specific policy grievances with the position of people in power. Europe does not encounter individuals attacking schools or grocery stores or theatres or houses of worship for the purpose of murdering masses.

What is the purpose of killing young children in their schools? What are the values of someone who believes that this is the way to change the minds of public officials? Do they truly believe it will Whiten America?

Americans have no more or less mental illnesses than do Europeans. American political leaders are willing to discard the old myths about guns and act to save lives. Every time they fail to act, these leaders enable other potential killers to engage on the next shooting spree.

If American leaders are not prepared to respond now, then the American people must act. They can and they must defeat all these weak politicians at the ballot box. If they do not, they will see their own children and grandchildren murdered by the next attacker entering a facility with an assault weapon.