Like Pre-War Germany

Are you a parent? How can you be a parent in this country and not nearly suffocate from fear every time you send your child out to school, or you yourself go the supermarket and may not make it back home to take care of that child . . . because, you know, having deaths is the price we pay for our "god-given"* right to own a weapon.

 

Or how do you not worry that the police will come when your wife takes birth control pills eventually? Because they're trying to pass laws for that.

They're also trying to pass laws to make it illegal for someone besides a parent to transport or assist a minor in obtaining an abortion. There are households where incest is the norm. I think it's sick to force a girl to give birth to her brother.

And then we have the bans on the statue of David, and book banning, and . . . more and more domestic terrorism. How is an asshole with a rifle walking into a school and shooting it up any different from someone from Palestine walking into Israel with a bomb strapped to them? They're the same. Is the gun killing a better way to die? I think not. Or maybe it's because we're white and the Islamic terrorists aren't that makes it all better?

WTF is happening in this country?

How do I - or anyone else - figure out if what we are seeing is popular support for fascism, as opposed to fearful, tactical acquiescence? Or just a lot of somewhat crazy people being caught up in the moment, taken in by the language that plays upon their fears and concerns?

Because while the extreme far right nuts want to call Democrats fascist, they are the ones attempting to curtail rights, ban books, and burn down the US Constitution. It's not Democrats, though the far left has its share of nuts. I foresee a day when the Democrats could do the very same thing, only in some kind of crazy-making reverse.

Culture wars are dismal and are used to force the masses to think this way or that. They are used to create fear, to cause distrust, to disseminate false narratives, to make us into puppets. They are not used to better society, to create hope, to make lives better.

Nothing about what is going on in this country right now is making lives better.

This dive into fascism and authoritarianism, this drive to "win" at all costs - is sick. This must be how a normal person felt in pre-World War II Germany. They could see the insanity all around them, but they didn't know how to stop it.

I don't know how to stop it. Or what to do about it. And frankly, I'm afraid. I'm afraid of what's happening, and I'm afraid I'm going to be one of those people who ducks her head and hides out of fearful, tactical acquiescence.

Every morning, I wake up to crazy. It's easy to become immune to crazy, to begin to see it as normal.

What we have going on here ain't normal, folks. If you can't see that, then you're part of the problem, and to be honest, I don't give a damn who I offend. If you think school shootings are a good price to pay to own a gun, if you think banning books is a great thing, if you think women should die instead of having an abortion, then you're the problem. 

If people would just mind their own business and leave everyone else alone, we wouldn't have this problem. Obviously, people have too much time on their hands since they want to mind everyone's business but their own.

Go mind your own business, whatever that is, and leave the rest of us alone. What I read, what I do with my body, what I think, who I associate with, what kind of sex I have in bed - none of that's your business. Seriously, it isn't.

If you are a parent, it is your business that your schools be safe and that you come home from the supermarket. That means you should consider gun control laws. It means if you think a book is bad, you take it away from your kid. You don't stop other kids from reading it.

You take care of yourself and your own. But you don't impose your will or your wishes upon others unless it is to make for a safer, saner society. But it has to be an honest effort, like gun control (not ban, control. There is a difference.). 

Book banning is not an honest effort. It's just Nazism disguised as protecting children.

We are all just doing the best we can, but some folks seem hell-bent on making it harder on the rest of us than it needs to be. 

How did we get to this nasty, awful place in our society, with awful, nasty people dominating the public conversation?

How did watching people die become so easy?

How do we change into what I truly believe we could be, a people of love, joy, and compassion? How do we reach closed minds?

How do we just live our lives when others want to live them for us?

*The small "g" is intentional. My God doesn't say that.