Our rights are not our enemy

Very sad about the way the American mainstream media is handling what has happened in Charleston, South Carolina. The stereotyping, generalization and the hyperbole that is coming out of everyone’s mouths, racism, gun control, and the whole gambit — all based on what? We speak things into truth and we really need to grasp that concept, and our media’s absolute refusal to acknowledge that the actions of one man do not reflect an entire state or country. When we hear the media say some things, we have a tendency to simply repeat them as if truth. How is it that everything we see on the news and in the paper and on the Internet, without question and critical thinking, we assume to be true? We have had a tragedy, one very sick person who has no view of the value of life, who has done a very horrible thing, but how is that a reflection on an entire state, a reflection on the entire country, a reflection upon everyone who owns firearms? We have reached the state of utter ridiculousness in the United States, the way we continue on and on to generalize, and in the meantime, condemn people for stereotypes and generalizing. Critical thinking, clear, logical, reasoned thinking, is dead in America. We are emotional creatures, completely addicted to drama, ruled and controlled by crisis, and our government is totally taking advantage of that. We take a crisis committed by one person, and I’m not going to get into the whole false-flag thing or whatever — you guys can chase that if you want — the bottom line is, the event is controlling the narrative in a distorted and disturbing way. Obama is on his fundraising tour saying some of the craziest things. “There are 21-year-old kids that can buy firearms.” Come now: 21 years old now is a kid? I bet if you went to Barack Obama when he was a 21-year-old man and called him a kid, he would have cried. Be realistic now: one 21-year-old man who is obviously sick in the head and clearly on some type of medication — now, we have to call 21-year-old men “kids” in order to end our ability to own firearms, and the idea that this South Carolina tragedy would have never happened if we had new gun laws. The people who commit crimes don’t care about laws. Is there not a law against murder? Clear, logical, critical thinking, people! The law that says it is a crime to shoot to murder someone didn’t even stop this man. The fact that there is a law that even says someone can be executed for murdering someone didn’t stop this man. So, now, we are going to create more gun laws to stop this? You know what stopped because of a gun law? Those people’s lives in that South Carolina church because there was a law that restrained law-abiding citizens from carrying guns into a church, and now, the criminals murder people and the law-abiding citizens are disarmed. If you want to preserve liberty, then, you must have law-abiding citizens who are armed. I’m not trying to diminish what has happened and we should grieve and pray for those families for their loss, but using these situations to create more of them is not the way. Freedom of speech and our right to defend ourselves did not create nor cause this tragedy. The solution in the media is not “How are we going to stop a crazy man?” but “How can we lose our rights?” Think!

Robert Duff Smyrna