A nation of "rights": Huffington Post rant

After the Tucson shootings, I wondered if we would ask ourselves some hard questions about what happens when the individualistic ethos of our nation seems to, well, run amok.

In the eighteenth-century the idea of individual rights may have been just the thing for a new nation, which wanted to set itself apart from the tyrannies of kings. But the idea of rights doesn't work so well when your "rights" infringe upon the vulnerable, or my safety.

What should, what could supplement or even replace our "rights-base" culture? Feel free to comment.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elizabeth-e-evans/when-rights-become-wrong_b_815209.html

How do we heal?

The fact that alleged killer Jared Loughner could walk into Walmart and buy a high-capacity magazine is "insane" said evangelical professor David Gushee. "And you can quote me on that."

I did -- kind of...see the commentary here.

http://articles.lancasteronline.com/local/4/338949

After interviewing Dr. Gushee, I felt slightly less alone in an America torn by division and violence -- but still baffled.

Today, the day that we honor Dr. Martin Luther King, we also recall his commitment to nonviolent resistance -- the same devotion to loving one's enemy that impelled the Messiah, the Prince of Peace.

And in a country in which the majority still claim to be Christians, a CNN News poll today found that while most thought our guns laws had something to do with Tucson terror, only around 28% wanted to alter them.

How do you reconcile love for the man who told you to pray for those who hurt you and love for your Glocks?

Maybe you know, readers. I don't.

Un-American Elizabeth

"How could you?" asked the heroic woman who reached out and stopped alleged mass murderer Jared Loughner from killing or wounding another 20 people. Grabbing the new magazine out of his hand, she asked him, according to bystanders, "how could you?"

And as I look out my window at the quiet landscape of exurban Philadelphia, in which many of my neighbors are hunters and NRA-affiliated, I wonder -- how can they?

And I wonder -- is it my inability to understand? My judgmentalism? Or is it something else?

I have friends who are hunters. I have friends who butcher their own deers, slice them up and package them. It's not my thing, at all, but I don't judge them, or believe that they are going to turn into mass murderers. Nor so for my pals who like to hang out at shooting ranges and bring down clay pigeons. Keep your guns. I trust that you know when and where to use them.


But on one issue, I part company with many of them -- their support for the American gun culture. Why is it OK for crazy (or maybe not) 22-year olds to have access to assault weapons? Why can't we ban the kind of high-capacity magazine that Loughner used to maim or kill his victims? Why, in certain states, are you allowed to bring your gun into church or restaurants?

Why, when little girls are shot at grocery stores and teenagers in churches, as happened in 1999, do you justify it by wanting to bring in more weapons?

I don't feel safer. I feel threatened. And I reject the assertion that by raising the questions, I am "dancing in the blood of the victims." This isn't a fascist state, where you aren't allowed to ask questions.

We gun-control advocates are toothless tigers -- and rarely, in this country, have I personally felt more alone on an issue.

Call me a traitor. Frankly, I don't give a hoot. On this issue, and this issue alone, I'm proud to be un-American.

Second Amendment blues

Depressed and overwhelmed, as are so many of us, by the horror that happened in Tucson this past week, I'm also getting royally pissed at the poseurs on both sides who attempt to score linguistic advantage from the murders. In part it's because I suspect that this is all that may flow from Tucson -- not a real attempt to listen to others, not new desire for compromise, not any constructive attempt to deal with immigration or unemployment or the issues that burden that part of our country.

I long for more sane gun-laws -- but right now I'm just hoping Arizona Second Amendment liberty doesn't come to Pennsylvania.

As in so many cases, I can appreciate both sides of the debate.

Yes, words matter -- when they are stand-ins for malign intent. Maybe it's better to challenge the intent than the language.

And metaphors and the images they suggest are also engrained in our culture -- sometimes used carelessly, sometimes to enrich, sometimes to shock, sometimes to enlighten. They are double-edged swords.


Yesterday my daughter told me that she had lost a friend -- someone with whom she was in constant contact. When her girlfriend told the DQ she wanted to put another girl "up against the wall and kill her" my child objected. In no uncertain terms.

I told her that she had done just the right thing -- the gutsy thing. There's enough violence in our world. Why contribute to more?

I'll leave the warlike metaphors, the macho images to those of you who like to indulge. Just take a look around you, ponder a moment when you speak -- or post.

You never know who may be listening.

New Year's (Ir) resolutions, luuv department

I'm not big on resolutions, period.

I don't diet. That would require self-control I just don't have -- so you won't see me going all orthopraxic on you.

As regards losing the five minutes between my normal m.o. and an on-time arrival -- that's work in progress, a goal out there on the verge. Trust me, I'm aware of my defects in that regard -- and I have found forgiving friends.

I'm not going to try to write a novel, or even a set amount every day -- unless I get a great advance, of course.

Talking about advances (how'd you like THAT segue way)? I'm going to try to avoid the hit men this year, as good as their stories may be.

I do have a few targets to meet in the odd, quixotic, bizarre romance category. But they are more in the nature of self-improvement than fantasy.

I'm going to date more. Give out my number to some guys. Put on make up, a nice skirt and velvet jacket to meet some strange guy in a Barnes and Noble. Get in the car. Start the engine.

This isn't as simple as it sounds. I find it extremely easy to say "no thanks." There are so many ways in which life is simpler without a man in the picture. Yet sometimes, I have inklings that it might be fun to have one closeby, even if he isn't always standing next to me.

I've learned some things this year.

Some labels aren't important to me. I don't feel the need to share my faith with someone --I have plenty of people to do that with.

He can see the scars - I have plenty -- but he doesn't need to rescue me. Nor I him.

I don't need to eat what he eats, read what he reads, or even watch what he watches. I do want to learn from him -- and hopefully, he will want the same from me.


It is important that he share some of my values -- concern for others, compassion, an interest in the world with its pain and loveliness and perplexity.

Preferably, he should have children, and his kids should be important in his routine life. My kids don't need a father -- and I'm not looking for one for them. But in a world in which so many dads are disenfranchised or just throw in the towel, it is a wonderful thing when a fellow can adventure through fatherhood.

I'd like to find someone as grounded as I am-- or someone who wants to find that ground within himself.

The truth is, I hate "dating" with a passion. Yet I can't seem to give up on the vision.

This past year held a few surprises -- I have been touched when I haven't expected to be, deepened when I wasn't looking for it. I have lost a little bit of the cynicism that can be so pervasive in my soul -- have wept a few tears for what could have been, but not given myself away.

Maybe it will be a good year for romance -- if I can just find that jacket. And that eyeliner. And the skirt. And the big, big smile.

Virtual arrival

A few days ago I got a text from the Lancaster area -- "Merry Christmas!" When I inquired who it was, the message came back -- "It's Jim from Salunga, do you remember me?"

Jim isn't the only former date to get in touch with me. A friend emails from the Middle East, where he has gone back to teach --another sends a terse message from Lancaster.

And after I congratulate a friend getting a degree in the city on removing his profile from the dating site (he's on his way to see his wife in Havana) he texts me back with cheerful impudence. He's made another profile with a different name -- and let's do coffee in the New Year. Even though I have spurned his sexual advances, he still apparently recalls me fondly -- the last time he communicated was to let me know that he thought of me (of us?) every time he walked by that restaurant.

And I remember him, on the subway platform, something in his eyes I could not name.

Why get in touch, I asked the teacher. You stand out, he told me -- you seem down to earth. We go back and forth a few emails, then we peter off, challenged by the miles and starved of more than text.

Inevitably, even if one isn't out at a party bringing in the year, New Year's Eve is a night for taking stock. I watch my kids developing social lives of their own and know that, as much as I would like to spare them the loneliness and the disillusionment and drama of loving and losing and loving again, they will have to find their way.

Maybe they will be fortunate, and get it right the first time.

"It's a dog-eat-dog world" somebody told me earlier this evening. I try to relate to others as though that wasn't true. I hope that the guys who have checked back in this year, for whatever purpose, don't think of me as one of the dogs -- but maybe as someone who offered a little kindness on their journey.

And I hope that the New Year will offer me a kindred spirit, who reciprocates that chastened hope and wants to not only check back in -- but walk the road with me.

But for now, my son and daughter are spending the first night of the New Year in my room -- so eager to fly, but so unsure as yet, as to whether they have wings.

Unwrapping the present (s)

I sat there during the musical introduction enjoying the music. The prelude was ambitious, but our organist, the instrumentalists and choir were all doing what they were supposed to do -- and then it happened. An instrumentalist put down his trumpet, apologized to the crowd, and walked away.

For me the mood of the service was shattered -- as the celebrant, I was the maestro who needed to keep things moving. People having fits wasn't in the program. I couldn't wait for the service to be over, and it wasn't until "Silent Night," with its candles shining on the stained glass picture of Jesus behind the sanctuary, that I recovered.

But the odd thing was that most of the congregation apparently didn't feel that there was a serious issue.

How was your Christmas? Were you tripped up by your expectations? How about New Years resolutions? Will you be hard on yourself if you don't meet all of them?

Is it hard for you to remain in the present moment?

One of my resolutions this year...is to be more "present" to what is occuring in front of my nose -- as opposed to worrying what may happen in a few weeks, or a year.

A more peaceful stance has a few advantages. I'll be less stressed...and it gives us plenty of time to get that Christmas service fixed. ;-)

http://articles.lancasteronline.com/local/4/328004