you know, whenever i spend extended periods of time outside of the united states the u.s ends up seeming weirder and weirder.
the nra, for example. and religious nuts. and pro-life crazies. and so on. they have gun nuts and religious nuts and pro-life nuts in europe, but nobody really listens to them. which, if you think about it, is how it should be.
there are so many unpleasant things that we take for granted in the states, like people shooting each other. when someone shoots someone else in the states it’s not all that newsworthy, cos something like 20,000 people shoot each other every year in america. but in europe when someoneshoots someone it’s a big deal, because every year in europe only a couple of hundred people shoot each other.
you read about the nra influencing public policy, and if you live in the united states you just think ‘oh well, thats the way it’s always been. the nra will always defend a citizens right to carry fully automatic weapons and concealedhandguns with armor piercing bullets.’ but leave the united states and you suddenly realize that organazitions like the nra are vicious and insane, and that they would be extremely marginal in any other democratic country. but in the u.s we’vecome to accept (or be numbed by) the fact that so much policy is set by insane, ideologically extreme lobbying groups.
everyone in the u.s should leave the u.s for a while, just to see how things are done elsewhere. you’d be surprised at how sane and reasonable somany other countries happen to be. countries where handguns and automatic weapons are illegal and there’s no death penalty and people don’t bomb abortion clinics and sex education is taught in schools and so on and so on.
and don’t try to say that i’m being a bad citizen by lamenting the fact that most of the people in the states have become inured to the fact that 20,000 or so people are shot to death in america every year, and that right wing crackpots influence public policy more than sane, moderates do.
there is nothing patriotic about violent gun deaths, the death penalty, bombing abortion clinics, banning books, censoring talk about sexuality, etc.
europe and japan and australia and new zealand may not be perfect places, but in many ways they’re so much more reasonable and sane than the united states.
moby