I Am A Moron

 

Apparently, I am a moron. I posted yesterday on Facebook about the fatal shooting at a high school graduation on Virginia. Seven people were shot, two of whom died. I said this:

Another mass shooting in one of the slave states. Those fothermucking mouth-breathers love guns more than anything else, including their own children.

I was called a moron for saying that.

As you can see, the majority of these incidents occur in Southern states. The "slave states."

In the past, I have used the term “slave states” to refer to those states in the Southern US that seceded and formed the Confederate States of America. Those states – South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina – seceded primarily due to slavery. Several states specifically mention slavery (which they also referred to as their “peculiar institution”) in their Articles of Secession:

Mississippi: “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world.”[1]

Texas: “We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.”[2]

Virginia: “[T]he Federal Government, having perverted said powers, not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern Slaveholding States.”[3]

The Confederacy was, in large part, based on slavery and racism. Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens proclaimed as much in his “Cornerstone Speech,” saying:

“its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”[4]

Even now, 158 years later, many Southerners refuse to acknowledge that the South was soundly trounced, claiming that General Lee surrendered “because he was a gentleman.”

Today, in the Deep South[5], little has changed. Racism is still rampant, and the “N-word” is still in daily use, still as a pejorative. Opportunities, educational and occupational, are still severely limited for persons of color.

 

But it’s not just racism. The South, especially the Deep South, educational opportunities are limited, not just for blacks, but for all. There is not the emphasis on education that is seen here in the North. Renaissance man Isaac Asimov said, “Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'”[6]  Couple this with the deeply ingrained belief in the Bible, and the recent growing influence of fundamentalist Christianity, and one has a culture reveling in ignorance.

Many fundamentalists use their faith as a cudgel, a tool to oppress and suppress those with whom they disagree.

 

They further claim the absolute authority to determine what is “right” for the rest of society.

This perversion of Christianity is quite similar to the perversion of Islam practiced by fundamentalist Muslims like the Taliban, al Qaeda, and the government of Iran. Both promote religious law over secular law; both severely limit the rights afforded to women and minorities; both hold anything other than heterosexual orientation to be an abomination; both believe that heresy is worthy of death.

The Deep South also has an unholy infatuation with guns, granting inanimate firearms more rights, and broader-reaching rights, than are extended to people, especially children. Today, June 7, is the 158th day of 2023, yet according to gunviolencearchive.org, there have been 279 mass shootings (defined as four or more victims, excluding the shooter), with 118 children killed and 282 injured, and 660 teens killed and 1717 injured.

Despite this bloodshed, the NFRA and its bought-and-paid-for Congress refuses to enact even the most basic gun safety legislation, even when a majority of Americans support such laws as waiting periods and "red flag" laws. Political writer and military veteran Jim Wright has a long essay on gun violence and a series he calls the "Bang Bang" series, a collection of essays on America's almost sexual fetish with firearms, and the repeated failure of Congress to do something -- ANYTHING -- to stop the carnage.

Remember "Joe the Plumber"? After the 2014 Isla Vista killings, he proclaimed, "As harsh as this sounds—your dead kids don't trump my Constitutional rights," a clear, unambiguous statement that gun rights are paramount, even over the right to live.

Overall, the South, and especially the Deep South, has a history steeped in racism, hatred, and violence, compounded by its enthusiastic embrace of Christo-Fascist religious and political beliefs.

If I'm a moron for putting the lives of human beings above the "right" of some redneck asshole to own as many guns as he can afford, and his "right" to kill "those people," so be it.

Perhaps my commenter would prefer that I refer to the South as "the meth states"?

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[1] https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/declaration-causes-seceding-states#South_Carolina

[2] Ibid 

[3] ibid

[4] https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/cornerstone-speech

[5] Defined by Dictionary.com as South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana

[6] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/84250-anti-intellectualism-has-been-a-constant-thread-winding-its-way-through; original emphasis