Politics, and Other Things Americans Hate

There's an article below the fold on the front page of today's Denver Post, that begins: "Americans already hate politics ..."

Yes, and we hate violence, too.

This is why we have an election cycle that is nearly as ongoing as the painting and maintenance of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Because we hate politics.

This is why, days after breaking our previous record here in Colorado for people slaughtered and otherwise shot up in a single building at more or less a single moment, we are wondering, if just wondering, whether or not it is particularly unusual for a young man ostensibly interested in the neurosciences (rather than, say, the commandant of the local wing of the National Guard) to have purchased and kept 6,000 rounds of ammunition in his apartment. Many who don't hate violence like we do might just assume that owning 6,000 rounds of ammunition if you're not, say, a Russian in Stalingrad in 1942, or a German soldier stuck in a pillbox on Normandy Beach in 1944, isn't anymore crazy, necessarily, that buying and stacking up in your home 6,000 rolls of toilet paper, or 6,000 cans of dog food, or Spaghettios, or 6,000 condoms (assuming you're not an Olympic athlete).

But we wonder, and we wonder hard. Because we hate violence.

Yet ... we don't jump to conclusions. We shake our heads and sigh. We consider the damage that might be done to individual liberties, not to mention our "well-regulated militia" that, along with Homeland Security, the Army, the Navy, the Marines, the Air Force, the Coast Guard, the National Guard, the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, as well as our various local and regional police forces, guards our way of life (that, unfortunately, for whatever reason, seems to include the occasional random slaughter of persons in the wrong place at the wrong time by someone frequently deranged and armed to the teeth), the slippery slope we might be descending were we to let the government tell us, willy-nilly, that we can no longer order 6,000 rounds of ammo, to put in clips as big as a hat box, over the internet, or even a counter at some store.

After all, what are they going say we can't have next?

Best, perhaps, despite our hatred of violence, to leave well enough alone, for fear of unwittingly making our already deflationary economy worse. Gun merchants need to make living, too. Just like the owners of diners in Iowa and New Hampshire. Journalists ... imagine what would happen to those already beleaguered souls if we decided to wrap up our hateful politics in a few weeks, like they do in Canada? Where they pay higher taxes than we do, but don't complain as much about them, even though they have socialized medicine run by the government, because basically Canadians are too nice and polite to complain, much less be flat out hateful, like Americans ...

Who hate paying taxes, and hate politics. But don't take anything our taxes pay for, or our guns and ammo, away, or you'll know what real wrath looks like.

As Mitt and Paul, I suspect, will soon find out. If they don't already know ...

Did I mention that the story below the fold came out of Dubuque, Iowa? Probably someone who owns a diner ... who's had it with the politicos, all the grousing, the vicious attacks and lies. So different than the previous elections, when the candidates couldn't have been nicer, and the expense accounts were bigger.