Theirs and Ours

Theirs and Ours

On the morning of the Sandy Hook Elementary shootings I logged onto Facebook where I saw many friends from Connecticut posting their condolences to the people of Newtown.  I had no idea what happened and thought maybe there was a terrible accident because of snow.  When I went to the Connecticut Post and saw that another school shooting had occurred it felt all the more devastating because it was a town that I grew up next to.  

            I haven’t stepped foot in Newtown in almost five years, and the last time I did I was experiencing a tragedy of my own.  I’ve been regionally disconnected from the area for well over ten years now, but still, my stomach sunk deeper than it had any other time one of these miserable incidents took place.  It’s been a long time since Newtown last passed through my mind, and thinking on it now I never realized the impact it had on my life.  My first job was in Newtown.  It was at Stop and Shop.  I worked there for three years going from carriage-pusher, to cashier, and eventually to working the night stock after graduating high school.  It seemed everyone I worked with on that night crew was much older and had some serious life issues.  That job was a big push for me to pursue a life I wanted, not one I was stuck with.  Newtown is where I bought most of my comic books at a little store by the railroad tracks.  It was called Cave Comics and I can’t tell you how much I loved visiting that place.  There was something mystical built up in my mind about it; maybe the name, or the location (not being in a city area or the mall), the creaky wood floors, the owner’s dog loafing around, or maybe the wall-to-wall comics.  Yeah, it was probably the wall-to-wall comics.  Then there was Edmond Town Hall, the place I saw more movies than anywhere.  It was a second-run movie theater made out of an old town hall (hence the name) that cost two bucks to get in.  I hear they tried to raise the price once and there was outrage by the people of Newtown.  The first time I went to a theater by myself while my parents went out to dinner was at Edmond Town Hall.  I remember going to see Critters 2.  That’s pretty awesome.

Work, comics, and movies.  If this little town didn’t help construct who I am today, I don’t know what did.  And I never thought about that.  I never thought about how many times I traveled the roads to get through Newtown so that I could travel to places like New Milford or Danbury to see friends, or live music at Tuxedo Junction, or drink the many beers of Hat City.  Newtown, Connecticut is also where my older sister eternally sleeps.  The last image I have in my mind of this town is leaving a cemetery in a trail of cars and watching as a much-loved woman waited in her bed to become part of the earth.  

A tragedy made me think of these things.  It made me think of a formative time in my life long gone.  And not so long after thinking these things, even with all these good memories, I came to the conclusion that I don’t know these children that were killed and my only connection to them was a region of the world and the fact that we are human.  My regional connection was closer than most, but even if I was from Georgia or maybe Oregon, I would still claim a regional connection because we were all Americans, and my empathy for the family and friends of those poor people would still hold a place of deep meditation inside. 

Newtown is a place within the trees.  It’s one of those places in Connecticut where it seems like you can only see the sky from an open parking lot, that same sky that children all over the world look at.  Children of different races.  Children of different regions.  Children with parents of different political identities or religions.  But children and human beings nonetheless.

There are towns like Newtown where children are murdered all the time.  They have open skies all around, and in those skies are foreign crafts that fly and spy and kill.  They not only kill people that the American government claims are bad (without any transparency), but they also kill children.  Lots and lots of children.  More than were killed in Newtown or any other school shooting.  And it isn’t just one devastating day, it’s over and over again, for years and years, with no end in sight.  Rather than feeling empathy here in America for these foreign children that are not of our religion, political views, or color, we simply look the other way.  We keep up the charade that it has to be done for our freedoms.  Not only do we reelect the people who commit these crimes, we make excuses for their criminal actions.  We say better theirs than ours…ours.

Shouldn’t the value of a child’s life go beyond the borders of nationalism? 

At a time of great innovation in the world where we can learn anything we want about whomever and wherever for practically nothing, it amazes me how backwards and closed-minded we still are.  People seem to still trust getting information from old institutions that would rather report from state press releases than report the truth of the world.  Emotional reporting that draws us in to the image of a president wiping away invisible tears over children he’s using for political gains.  How did we become wired to not question this action when we should be outraged by his hypocrisy?  We applaud their showmanship like a Michael Bay explosion rather than peeling the layers of their script to expose the crocodile beneath their tears.  It’s a fool’s hope to think that the same creeps that have their grip on the world just want to protect us. 

There is a false privilege in being American.  It stems from the historical privilege of the Europeans and the white race.  Because certain people took ownership of the world before anyone else it didn’t matter who died outside of their region.  And it doesn’t matter now.  It doesn’t matter how young they are, and it doesn’t matter how unconnected to the crime they are being murdered for, because they are not ours.  They are not American.  Whether by bullet, by mass bombing, by drone, or by sanctions, this American government has been involved in the deaths of well over one million people in the last twenty years, and we only ask for more.  Every time a 9/11 or a Sandy Hook happens and we let them lead the conversation and then follow with cries of more control, we acquiesce our natural rights of life and liberty. Every time someone protects taxation they protect violence, because taxation will never be voluntary.  Every time a person votes, they assert their position that they own their neighbors life because their politicians are the right ones to legislate for their well-being. 

Nothing in this world gives me a more sinking or desperate feeling than a scared American.  The irrationality of collectivism that sweeps over this country in times of crisis is much more frightening than any terrorist threat could ever be.  American tyranny and American fascism doesn’t just go away; it grows, it festers, and it imbeds into the culture.

My heart goes out to the families of Sandy Hook.  I hope they can find their place in the world again.  It’s a tough thing when you lose such a huge part of your future.  Most of us know that feeling even if it isn’t a child.  Just as much though, I often think of what it must be like to live in a small village in the Middle East and have fear and stress come over me as a drone passes overhead.  And just as much, I feel for the folks who are going to be hit directly with punishment because of a disturbed young man’s crime.  We don’t know what the new laws will be, but they will definitely inhibit one group’s liberty because another group wants it.  The individual is stomped on once again for the collective.  Of course there will be no actual control of guns.  Criminals will always get them, and the rest will be centralized into the hands of government, the most violent gang in the history of the world.  Once again the monopoly holds strong and the real problems will never be sought out.  There will be no answers.  There will just be stronger prohibition once the next shooting occurs, and the organization we need the most control over will continue to have more control over us.

Newtown is a place from my past.  The few memories I shared could never paint a full picture, but you get an idea of the kind of town it is.  The occupations and police states of the Middle East are constant and in motion.  Most of us are only subjected to one version of that story, and project outright anger and hatred when one tries to present another.  America is a certain kind of place in our history books, but in reality it never was what it was.  The ideal of what it can be is still there, though day by day that is lost more and more.  I’ll be in that little town in Connecticut again someday sitting amongst the peaceful trees and talking to my sister, but the chaos of Sandy Hook will always be prevalent no matter how far back in my mind I try to push it.  That connection can no longer be severed, just like the world cannot be separated from America, and America can no longer be separated from the state. 

Liberty begins within the home, and if the individual loses the right to protect their family, their friends, and their own lives, then all liberty is lost.  What we do overseas, we do out of sight for now.  It always comes home.  In fact the technology, the surveillance, the weapons, and the destruction of civil rights already have.  We only wait for the violence.  Because the state is mayhem.  The state is confusion.  The state cannot change, and will not change.  It will forever be tyranny.  The only change we can ever gain is in the mind of the individual.  The state just needs to go away.