Armed and Dangerous

I'm getting upset with all of these assaults on the common good coming from militant right-wing groups lately, one of those groups being Fox News. I'm not going to ask anyone to tone down the rhetoric, because Nancy Pelosi already tried that and John Boehner has no desire to.

Yesterday, a group of Second Amendment supporters demonstrated for gun rights on national parkland in Virginia on the Potomac River, across from Washington, D.C, yesterday, a day associated with anniversaries that have nothing to do with German popes or German cars. Specifically, yesterday was the Lexington and Concord anniversary (a state holiday, called "Patriots' Day," in Massachusetts, celebrated officially on the third Monday in April), the anniversary of the Waco Branch Davidian raid in 1993, and the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. April 19 is synonymous with anti-government rage, and the gun rights advocated who demonstrated yesterday were clearly hoping to send a message - and possibly fire another shot heard 'round the world. Not literally, maybe, but they sent a chilling message just the same.

There seems to be a disregard for the general welfare in this country that permeates all the way to Supreme Court. The Court ruled today that videos of put bull terrier fights are legal under the First Amendment, throwing out a law that bans such tapes and delivering a blow to animal welfare activists. There seems to be a cultural zeitgeist honoring reckless, dangerous behavior that hurts or can even kill others. It's very depressing and hardly indicative of the brighter future we were looking forward to on Election Night 2008.

Having been founded long after the Dark Ages in Europe, America seems to be going through its own period of medieval-style decline and superstition. An American Renaissance can't start soon enough.