Normal

A friend of mine made a joke the other day about me maybe being normal after all. Co-workers, she doesn't know me all that well, but does have a hint of just how far off the reservation I can go. So her saying I might be normal was a kind of a complement, and I took it that way. Normal though, is problematic.

I make no pretence of being a 2ed Amendment kind of person. I don't care about guns one way or the other, but I'm not particularly thrilled about living in a society that worships violence, hate and mayhem, and then arms itself to the teeth. And while any kind of gun control would be welcome, (seeing as we have little or none at the moment) I don't think we are going to see anything meaningful happen because of this most recent killing spree. Killing sprees are normal in our country.& In fact they happen just about every day. There have been no new laws as a result of the last dozen or so most notorious ones, including the attempted assassination of former Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Expecting sanity to suddenly break out and spread though my fellow Americans now seems mostly an act of wishful thinking.

(I haven't seen much indication of sanity among any of the gun people I know. Twenty dead kids and their response is to go out and buy more guns, or even more nuts, more high capacity clips. I love 'em, but they are bat-shit-fucking-crazy, each and every one. An apt analogy might be this; after the Catholic Church being hoist upon its own petard during the child sex scandal, had Catholics everywhere going out to buy more kiddie porn. It is hard to imagine anyone being that twisted, but somehow gun lovers made the leap effortlessly.)

Most people in this country think guns should be accessible, at least to most people, most of time, for just about any reason. No need to be a hunter, a competitive target shooter, or have a job where a gun is part of the tool kit; just wanting one is enough. No need to explain why you think you need a 100 round, rapid fire, high tech killing machine at your finger tips. No need to have training or hold a licence that has to be renewed every few years. No need to know that guns make your house less safe, not more, and that the gun in the house is most likely to be used to shoot a family member or friend. Normal people think is is normal to want to own a gun.

Most of the people in this country (and the world for that matter) believe in a god or higher being or supreme power of some kind. No two of them believe exactly the same things about these gods, though groups of people hold beliefs close enough to the same that they can stand being around each other ... most of the time. Catholics tolerate other Catholics, unless they disagree about something serious like gay people. Protestants will usually abide Protestants of another denomination, giving most at least a chance of being allowed into heaven. They are often less optimistic about a Catholic's chance at passing through the pearly gate but that is okay. Catholics don't give the Protestants much of a chance at all. That doesn't make the Christians any worse than other groups of believers. Muslims barely tolerate each other let alone Christians, Jews or Hindus. Much of the "Muslim World" is pretty busy killing each other off with Islamic governments being fond of supporting terrorist organizations to wage proxy war on other Islamic governments. Of course they take any chance that comes along to kill Christians, Jews and Hindus.

Not to be completely outdone, the US is waging a pretty efficient drone war against Islamic terrorists. The problem is a lot of none terrorists get killed along the way. Not a big problem though, all of the none terrorists are still Muslims. So the killing goes on. Think I'm full of shit on that? Ask yourself what would happen if one of those drone strikes missed and brought down the local Christian church full of believers on a Sunday morning. Chaos. Now miss the target and knock down a Mosque. Less chaos, much much less chaos.

Religion is normal. Assuming all "other" religions are somehow inferior to one's own is normal. Religious intolerance, war, murder and butchery are also normal. It is only abnormal when the other guy does it, and even then only if he is of another religion. Think I'm full of shit on that? Ask a Catholic about the Pope and Galileo or the Inquisition; a Protestant about the Witch Trials, or either one about the war in Ireland. Chances are better than 50 / 50 they will offer a much softer line of criticism when the religion at fault was the one they follow.

Normal people watch 5 hours of mass media propaganda a day. Normal people are crushed under a mound of credit card dept they ran up buying things they never needed and don't often use. There are normal people who think the moon landings (all six of them) were a hoax, that Obama is a foreign born Muslim, that angles watch over their shoulder, and that creationism is a science. Normal people get a flu shot every year, then vote in school boards that think teaching evolution as the myth will improve a child's education. Normal people haven't read a book this past week, or month, or even year.

In Iowa the perfectly normal dentist Dr. James Knight fired a women who had worked for him for 10 years because she was too attractive and threatened his marriage. Mind you, she had not done a single inappropriate thing and was (given that she had been doing her job for 10 years) perfectly capable of doing her job. She was fired because of the good Doctor's moral and emotional failings. (To say nothing of shear arrogance. Apparently he is of the opinion that, should he be unable to control himself and make a play for his assistant, she would certainly fall to his overture. This guy is an asshole on to many levels to count.) Then - and here is the real kicker - the seven completely normal men who make up the Iowa Supreme Court, each and every one of them, decided that the good Dr. is in the right. American judicial system, say hello to the Taliban, who have an identical view of how pretty women are the real reason men act like pigs.

I am a man, husband, father of three daughters and grandfather of three grand daughters. I am completely offended by Dr. James Knight and these supposed "Justices." If I was god and these eight stood before me after death, awaiting on judgment, (and if I were god that would be happening real soon) each would be spending a long, long time in purgatory. There they would discover that anything important to them, a job, house, favorite chair, good food, could be arbitrarily snatched away at the whim of someone who, by any measure, was their inferior in every way. After a few thousand years of this Dr. Knight and the Justices would get a chance to grovel before Mrs. Nelson, with every senescent being in the universe watching, and ask for her forgiveness. (By the way, notice it is Mrs. Nelson. Dr. James Knight is a complete piss-ant excuse for a human being, let alone a man.)

Our society is staggering along like a drunk in the early morning. It is debatable that we will ever make it home. Maybe the real problem is that most of us are "normal." What ever it is that a normal human being is, I would take it as a complement to be labeled "not normal".