An essay without a title about a crisis without a solution

Three (sort of connected) thoughts on yet another mass murder

Thought one

One of the places we seem to be wanting to lay blame is the FBI. I am no fan, but let me ask this: with all the deep cuts sequestration (remember that?) effected on various government departments, anyone want to guess whether the FBI might be short on the resources needed to check out Mr. FL high school shooter? 

It's all well and good to blame the agency or the unit manager who failed to deploy staff to follow up on the threats reported, but did they even have the needed human resources to perform the necessary reconnaissance? How many other such reports do they currently have open awaiting further action? Where was this report in the queue? Was the office overwhelmed and understaffed? How were they to know this guy needed to be interviewed and the threat he posed assessed instantly? How are these reports triaged? So many questions.........

It's easy enough to lay blame, but what about responsibility? Whose responsibility was it to ensure that the FBI had the resources they needed to keep the community safe? [Answer: that’d be the federal government] Whose responsibility is it to ensure that the financial resources were available for allocation [Answer: that’d be the taxpayers who fund the government and the taxpayers who vote for the legislature that apportions those funds]? 

I'm suggesting that we should think on these things first before we try to lay blame. Blaming is easy, taking responsibility not so much. Were there failures? Absolutely, but the context matters if we want to stop failing and I’m thinking we should be focused on stopping the failing.

Thought two

All the thoughts-ing and prayers-ing is probably performative. Your senators' and congresspeoples' piety is largely for show because real piety, real love for one's neighbor demands action, not hand-wringing and public posturing.

You want to pray? Pray by all means, but when you've said “Amen”, you have to do. But usually what comes after the tweets of prayerfulness and sorrow? Generally not one shit. That ain't nothing but showboat Christianity. 

In my bible, after Jesus prayed in Gethsemane, he went to the cross; after Jonah heard the voice of God, he went to Nineveh (to save the sinners there, a bunch of people he didn’t think deserved salvation incidentally); after Noah’s talk with God, he built an ark. What these people doin’? Not. One. Shit. 

Thought two (b)
Some of y'all swallowing the thoughts and prayers koolaid like your good Senators, ain't no better than them. Y'all will weep today and vote your hatred of minorities tomorrow never noticing that the two things cannot peacefully co-exist. As I’ve written before, the very legislators you choose so that they will screw minorities and the poor, are the same people who are ensuring that you are more likely to walk into the path of some random ass with a gun. But your need to harm the ‘other’ exceeds your love for yourself. That is an irresolveable tension that you’re gonna need to work out because, quite frankly, it’s killing you. Literally.

For me, there is no tension. I will ever choose me, and frequently that’s going to mean that you have to come along too, you have to receive a benefit too. I’m entirely OK with that. You’re not. Your hate for me and mine exceeds your love for you and yours. That's a serious problem, yours as well as mine, because when the gunman comes, he doesn't ask questions before he pulls the trigger, he just points and clicks. Some of you haven't cottoned on to that yet. I sure hope you get it soon though ‘cuz your disdain for others has made you a target of others.

Thought three

Here’s a question: how many of your kids need to be fatally harmed for you to figure this out? What has to happen for you to stop voting for folks that hate you and your kids? What bell has to go off in y’alls heads for you to see that doing the same thing over and over again, ain’t never gon’ yield some new outcome? Tell me what I have to say and I will say it cuz seriously, this shit is getting old.

There's a pattern here, look closely enough and you'll see it.

The folks some of you keep voting for cut taxes on the wealthy to the tune of millions, but you get a buck fiddy a week.

The folks y'all keep voting for cut regulation, and y'all get listeria, Flint-like water, chicken raised God only knows how in China, and arsenic in your rice.

The folks y'all keep voting for will legislate the hell outta a woman's vagina, ensure that drugs that give priapism (look it up) are covered by insurance but birth control ain't. They'll legislate baby-making but never teenager, pre-K-er or toddler murder and call themselves pro-life. And you'll believe them. Meanwhile, you walk around thinking that doing active shooter training at work is a great and reasonable response to the possibility of a mass murderer showing up at your job. How is that normal or reasonable??? 

This shit would  be laughable were it not for the fact that tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, we will all go to work or school in buildings that could potentially become our coffins. 

If my saying that makes you uncomfortable, I offer you my #ThoughtsAndPrayers. I hear that's good for something. Let me know how it works.

Carry on.