https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-five-extra-words-that-can-fix-the-second-amendment/2014/04/11/f8a19578-b8fa-11e3-96ae-f2c36d2b1245_story.html?tid=sm_tw
Then let's take a moment to remember John Lennon, who would be 75 this month, if he hadn't been murdered by a crazy fan 35 years ago.
And lastly this morning, let's ask what we ought to be doing in the Middle East. My view: let the Russians have at it. With our energy reserves, we Americans no longer need the Middle East. I have always believed that the Iraq War was about oil, not terror. The U.S. made a complete hash of it. Only Dick Cheney and his Haliburton friends made out on the adventure. Now we no longer need to support the hopelessly corrupt regime in Iraq. Nor do we need to care what happens to Syria. Fortress Israel can remain our foothold in the region, should we need a base camp from which to act in the future. Let's turn inward and solve the seemingly intractable problems we have here at home.
Then let's stop wasting energy (quite literally) and focus on the real problems confronting us domestically. Laws alone won't solve the gun problem. We need a sea change in American culture from the Wild, Wild West mentality that still dominates our society to a 21st century view that more closely resembles the civilizations of Europe. The Europeans had to endure two world wars and a holocaust in order to achieve genuine, compassionate civil societies. Having suffered none of that agony, and in fact having profited mightily in wealth and power from the wars of the last century, ours has remained a violent, reckless Dodge City of a society. It's a long pull, so we should start now to change hearts and minds. (But, meanwhile, it wouldn't hurt to do what we can to separate the nuts from the guns.)
More and better jobs for more Americans and a more equitable distribution of the nation's vast wealth might go a long way to quelling some of the endemic violence in our cities. I often wonder when my fellow citizens on the right will wake up and realize that every Republican president in my lifetime has favored tax breaks for the rich. How can you not get that? Why aren't you people with your crappy retail jobs sans benefits flocking to unions? Do you really think Jesus is going to take care of everything for you?
As for climate change, I doubt anything we do will make a major difference... not while Asia and Africa are developing and demanding the same rights to development that we in Europe and America enjoyed. So let's develop solutions aimed at dealing with the effects of climate change... whole new industries with thousands of jobs could be the outcome of such an effort.
Meanwhile, energy independence could get us out of the overseas-adventure cycle and enable us to deal with the problems that beset us here at home and block us from being the Great Society (don't knock it) we could have been and still could be.
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