What's Wrong With Our Country?

Taken Dec. 4, 2015

Half-staff flags again, the photo taken at the same place, on a day the wind was blowing in the opposite direction it was on November 19, just a few days ago. Why is it so often a day of mourning for our country, people are asking, and they're suggesting various remedies, mostly forms of gun control.

My view, should you care to hear it: This culture lives and feasts on murder. The U.S. is the biggest arms dealer in the world. We engineer and avidly play murderous video games and let our kids play them; we enjoy murders and autopsies and death and gun violence on TV and in our movies and books; we count on slaughter, fictional and real, for entertainment. We just love to be stunned when mass murders happen in our country (we don't care a real lot when they happen elsewhere that isn't Western Europe). We are excited and enchanted by the fuss, the video loops, cable news pornographically following every move and chasing every ambulance, the "experts" and "heads of state" and talking heads blaming guns, gun ownership, the economy, parents, mental illness, the Koran, racism, privilege, liberalism, colonialism, education, or history. Especially when white middle-class folks going to movies or school are murdered, concerned people call for a ban on all guns, or on assault weapons and not other guns, or say we should try to make it really difficult to get guns, or confiscate all guns, or change the Constitution because it's not correct or up to date.

First of all, stop loving murder. Refuse to let murderous entertainment or murder mysteries or horror movies into your house even if they're from the BBC, don't watch them, don't read them, and don't listen to TV news, which is tailored to create anxiety and fear and is a great tool for demagogues.

Second, quit turning each and every mass murderer into a celebrity, their faces on the cover of People magazine. The more attention we pay, the more murder spectacles there will be and the more half-mast flags will result.

Third, if you're so concerned, get off Facebook and get active, join an organization and work for what you believe in, donate money, support mental health clinics, befriend a troubled boy, fix it so that only those over age 21 with a high-school diploma and 3.5 grade average and no record and doctor-certified can legally obtain a firearm and require firearm education. Because we can't ban all guns, and even if we did they'd be sold on the sly and people would still leave them where kids can get at them, everyone should be trained from early youth in firearms safety. Make firearms "forbidden" items and you only increase their ability to fascinate.

And, if you are a responsible firearms owner, keep them and stay responsible. The first thing Mao did when he wanted "cultural revolution" was require all citizens to give up all guns, then gave them to mobs of brainless teenage boys, Red Guards, who had no problem at all threatening, beating, and killing their parents and teachers.

Are Flags at Half-Staff All the Time?

Taken Nov. 19, 2015

It seemed to me that flags fly at half-staff more than they used to -- in fact almost continually -- and I wanted to know whether I was imagining that or was it real. Well, dog my cats, U.S. and Missouri flags have been at half-staff a heck of a lot of the time. Information came from this state-run website.

• November 16, 2015: By order of the President of the United States, effective immediately, the United States flag at all State and government offices will be flown at half-staff, until sunset, November 19, 2015, honoring the victims of the attack in Paris, France. 
• October 16, 2015: By order of the Governor, all flags of the United States and the flag of Missouri at all State and government offices will be flown at half-staff on Tuesday, October 20, 2015, from sunrise until sunset in honor of Lance Corporal Dominic E. Shraft who died while serving his country.
• October 13, 2015: By order of the Governor, all flags at every fire station in the state of Missouri and the Fire Fighters Memorial in Kingdom City will be flown at half-staff, effective immediately, in honor of Firefighter Larry Leggio and Firefighter John Mesh who died in the line of duty on October 12th.
• October 5, 2015: By order of the Governor, all flags of the United States and the flag of Missouri at all State and government offices will be flown at half-staff, on Thursday, October 8, 2015 from sunrise until sunset as a mark of respect for former State Senator Harold L. Caskey.
• October 5, 2015: By order of the President of the United States, effective immediately, the United States flag at all State and government offices will be flown at half-staff, until sunset, October 6, 2015 honoring the victims of the tragedy in Roseburg, Oregon.
• September 10, 2015: In accordance with state law, Sec. 9.134 RSMo., the United States flag and the Missouri state flag shall be flown at half-staff on all government buildings statewide on Friday, September 11, 2015, from sunrise until sunset in honor of the individuals who died as a result of the terrorist attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001. 
• September 1, 2015: By order of the Governor, all flags at all State and government offices will be flown at half-staff, statewide, on Friday, September 4, 2015, from sunrise until sunset in honor of Trooper James M. Bava who died in the line of duty.  All flags at all Missouri State Highway Patrol locations will continue to be flown at half-staff through sunset on Friday, September 4, 2015.
• July 21, 2015: By order of the President of the United States, effective immediately, the United States flag at all State and government offices will be flown at half-staff, until sunset, July 25, 2015, honoring the service member victims of the tragedy in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Isn't much else to say, except it was news to me that Veterans' Day (Nov. 11) is NOT a half-staff day, a day of mourning. It's a "day of celebration and honor."