What does “basically” mean? I keep hearing this from people who are sure – really sure – most people are basically good, kind, caring folks. What does “basically” mean?

“Live and let live” has never been the way of nations. Not historically or now. With all the kindness and good-heartedness running rampant, how come so many nations are in the middle of bloody “ethnic cleansing” wars? Why has, through the centuries, religion been the primary excuse for the ugliest, most brutal attacks of one people against another?

Many — no doubt the good-hearted ones about whom I keep hearing — will remind me that MOST people are really kind and well-intentioned. I’m sure there are a lot of nice people wandering around, including us. Unfortunately, there are as many (if not more) UN-nice people and so many of them are armed.

Those not-so-nice people have an odd way of becoming our power brokers. The more they believe in violence, the more they seek power. You know what? Those vicious people keep getting elected. By us. Does anyone believe that only “not-nice” people vote for those evil bastards? No one is that naïve.

A lot of “nice people” are voting bad people into office or are not voting. Non-voters love to blame whatever happens on everyone else. FLASH! Not voting is a vote. Your failure to vote makes the vote of someone else twice as powerful.

It’s no accident that the current version of the Republican party is led by people who should be in jail. Is evil linked to power-seeking? Jesus agreed with me. Never did he suggest a violent response to Roman rule.

Did you know there are more per capita gun-related deaths in many rural areas than in most cities. This is not true for every state, but is true for more states than not. I didn’t believe it when I first read it, either. It flies against my belief that city life, with the traffic, cement, and grunge was part of what makes people crazy enough to shoot people for no apparent reason. I found it hard to believe, so I’m betting so will everyone else.

The way it works is that the total numbers are higher in cities because more people live in cities. But if you break it down “per capita,” it presents a different picture.

Gun violence is not an urban problem.
It’s an American problem.

Religion has become the excuse for evil deeds instead of a faith. Praise the Lord and let’s murder anyone who doesn’t agree with me. Somewhere along the path to today, I lost my faith in the goodness or even intelligence of humanity. I so deeply believed Americans would never shame us the way they have.

Regardless of the poetry on the Statue of Liberty or as hypocritically promoted in our Constitution, tolerance has not been America’s chosen path or, for that matter, the chosen path of any nation. With all those nice, good, caring people who are supposedly the majority and who we like to tell each other are “out there,” we never want to discuss how the others “out there” are cruel, intolerant, racist, bigoted, and violent. Or how many of them might live next door to any one of us.

Did any of you know that the level of violence in rural areas is higher than in any city? I was surprised to learn this. I assumed that all the concrete, traffic, and crowding had something to do with making people crazy. Not true. People are just “that way.”

Violent people don’t need a reason. All the stuff we tell ourselves must be the reason for their behavior? It’s nonsense. These are people who are looking for a reason to pick up a gun and shoot someone. It might be you, me, a child or grandchild of anyone — for no discernable reason.

Haters hate. They don’t need a reason.

Categories: Anecdote, Conscience and morality, Culture, good-and-evil, political parties, Politics, Religion

Tags: civility, good-and-evil, Marilyn Armstrong, nice people, not nice people