On Gun Control

There's a lot of sickness in America... But there's a lot of sickness everywhere

America has another, parallel issue. An issue that enables the sick and the lost and the angry to inflict that desperation on others

Guns

Guns are poison

The older I get the more I grow to hate them

"But what about Switzerland?" Some ask

I've lived in Switzerland. I never saw a gun. They are locked up and highly regulated. Getting one requires qualifications. It also requires taking training courses

I'd be far happier with America's gun system if it followed the Swiss model

But as it is any Tom Dick or Henry can walk into a freaking Walmart and pop out with enough ammunition to outfight God and all His angels.

It is more that absurd. It is perverse. It is disgusting. It is wrong. And it poisons everything.

No wonder cops kill at exuberant rates! Everyone they talk to might end their lives in a heartbeat. They have every reason to walk the streets scared and panicking.

No wonder many emain disproportionately afraid of the poor, the minority, the young man on the street corner! The frightened have often never been hurt before, but the cost of being wrong, of making a misjudgement, is infinite.

Americans live in a constant state of having to make life or death snap judgements

Can this possibly be the best we can do? Can the benefits some gain from this social toxin possibly be high enough to warrant the cost?

No!

America has too many weapons to ban them or confiscate them.

But no one should have a gun until they have gone through a government-created educational course

Showing them how to properly use, store, keep, and clean their weaponry.

Showing them when it is not appropriate to flash their weapons. Showing them that guns are, above all, tools that kill, not playthings, not collectables. They kill. They were made to kill. People need to be constantly reminded of that.

And the US needs a proper gun register. Did you know the government still doesn't have an electronic register? It is more than absurd, more than Kafkaesque. It is vile.

Christian Slayton

DAI North/Milan Chapter Secretary

The Cynic

The Cynic

Cynicism is the voice of the defeated who cry out that 'nothing matters anyway'. It is the cry of the coward who refuses to take up the fight. It is the argument of the privileged loser, he who knows that his body and his life and his livelihood will be safe when evil blows in.People who fight for what they believe in cannot be cynical: they know that who wins and who loses matters.

The cynic is not someone who looks at the battle and thinks "Fuck! It's rigged!" It is rigged. It has always been rigged. No, the cynic is someone who looks at the battle and says "Fuck it, it's rigged."The cynic thinks it doesn't matter. The cynic thinks it is all just a game, and one politician reigns much the same as any other. The cynic is not just wrong—the cynic is the good man who sits by while evil is committed. The cynic aids and abets the foe by doing nothing. The cynic who will not fight dooms us all!

Trump's supporters weren't cynical. They were fanatical. They know that politics isn't a game and it matters who sits in the president's chair. We lost 2016 for many reasons, but one reason was because too many of us thought that Clinton, with her decades of experience, was somehow the moral equivalent of Trump. Trump! Trump the fool, Trump the coward, Trump the megalomaniac! How bad must our cynicism have gotten if we could look at Clinton and think that she was somehow as ill-suited as Trump? How lost must we have been?

Death to cynicism, death to irony and to sarcasm, death to all that numbs the people of the world! The awake do not go meekly to the slaughterhouse, the alive do not succumb to paralysis, and we do not cede the field of battle while there is still a war to be fought!

Christian Slayton

DAI North/Milan Chapter Secretary