Seventy more ...

Years ago the Mayans (so the story goes) used to sacrifice children to the weather god, hoping for a favorable response and thus a good corn crop. It was crazy stupid of course. Dead children and gods have nothing to do with the corn crop.

In the United States we sacrifice our children to the gun violence, hoping to protect our "freedom". It is crazy stupid of course. Gun violence has nothing to do with freedom. In fact, just the opposite is true. In Aurora 12 people had their freedom to live another day taken from them by a mad man armed to the teeth.  There will be some hand wringing over this latest butchery, but no serious effort will be made to make our society safer. I think we should abandon the hand wringing and admit the obvious. We, the good people of the United States of America, love our violence. We love the killing. We love the idea that any one of us can buy a portable mass murdering machine whenever the fancy strikes. That has become our definition of freedom.

We are not born this way. Babies do not come pre-wired with a love of assault weapons coupled with a callous disregard for the lives of others. The relentless propaganda of the weapons manufacturers,voiced through the National Rifle Association, and coupled with millions of dollars of bribes to keep the political system from interfering with profits, makes sure we grow up this way. We hate to admit it, but propaganda works, and it works really, really well.

Barely a generation ago Nazi propaganda was so effective that the German people supported the attempt to rule the world with military might. They also agreed that the Jews were scourge that had to be eliminated. In that same generation American propaganda painted the Japanese as sub-human and fanatical in their desire to destroy the West. The exterminations of a few hundred thousand Japanese civilians by nuclear holocaust was a political possibility that became a military reality.

Over the last decade thousands of Muslims have maimed and killed tens of thousands of innocents with a relentless wave of suicide bombers. So pervasive, so insidious, so effective is that propaganda that even I, an atheist who can't credit Islam with a single redeeming bit of value, uses the term "suicide bombers" rather than "Muslim murders", though the latter is certainly the more truthful description.

The gun propaganda is just as effective.