Settling Our Differences By Force

SO, maybe there just isn't any solution. Maybe its that simple, that there is nothing that can be done. A nation founded on violence, greed, and racism destined to remain forever trapped in its own bitter paradigm. The United States of Ammorica is a culture which loves guns, even more than it loves competition and conquest. We refuse to give up our guns, and besides, we are told that to do so would do no good anyway, because - and how many times have we been told this - even if we did, the criminals would still be able to acquire firearms. Somehow, there is something strange, simplistic, and twisted about this line of reasoning; as if good guys and bad guys are separate, discreet entities, easily identifiable a priori, easily recognized and categorized. The fact that, no matter how hard we search, we still cannot find a motive for our latest blood letting, may mean that there is no motive, that a motive may not always be discernible or necessary, that sometimes, indeed all too often, people, people who were previously believed to be among the "good guys", just do bad things. Maybe we want too many answers, and we want them too quickly, too easily, and we want them to be too neatly packaged in easily digestible sound bite sizes. Maybe life, and human behavior, is, after all, more complicated than we might want it to be. The intricate, interwoven reasons behind our actions just might be too complex for our minds to discern or comprehend. Perhaps it is impossible for us to ever truly know ourselves. Socrates said "know thyself"... Goethe said: "Know thyself? If I knew myself, I'd probably run away." So would the rest of us, most likely. Our most recent massacre was perpetrated by a person whose father was a bank robber, on the FBI's ten most wanted list. Is that reason enough to massacre as many innocent people as possible? From his point of view, maybe. What about his mother? Was he spanked a few times too often? Was he ignored a time or two too often, at the wrong place at the wrong time? Who can ever know? We do know, however, that early childhood experiences do much to shape our later behavior, and that there is nothing we can do to change our early childhood experiences. We are indeed responsible for our actions, but so are our parents, so is society in general, for they influence us, irrevocably, whether or not we want them to. Half the country wants gun control, half the country wants to zealously protect gun rights. The gun rights protection people are far better funded, far better organized, far more motivated. Half of us are liberal, half, conservative. A nation torn apart by ideals and beliefs. Welcome to the United States of ammunition, where compromise is taboo, where we settle our differences on social media, by name calling, by fabrication, by never settling them, always by force.