Guns, Masks, And Abortion–The Holy Trifecta Of The Anointed

Donald Trump was the Left’s trash heap – all the garbage and dirty diapers that could be scraped up and dumped on him the better.  He was, after all, the repository of junk, the fake, and the scurrilous.  Rather than bother to listen to, let alone analyze his policy proposals, progressives went ad hominem. This man, they said, was inherently evil – naturally, congenitally sexist, homophobic, misogynist, and racist – and therefore no respect need be shown either to him or his office.  The more the garbage pile stank and festered the better to display the rottenness of the man, his shills, and his flunkies.

The Left was successful in their strategy, for many Americans unused to someone as un-presidential as Trump, a true outsider, a political  bull in a china shop, a rebellious, cantankerous man of the mean streets, voted the tried and true.  Yes, they had their doubts about an aging, mentally wobbly, pageboy to demagogues; but Joe Biden was at least calm, temperate, and reasonable.

Most of these unsure Democrats have defected, disappointed if not appalled at his floppy, politicized presidency; tired of his beating woke drums, flogging race, gender, and ethnicity, his jacking up taxes and offering nothing but promises and pork in return; and his wandering here and there on the international stage.

The Left’s true believers have never hesitated in their presumption of right behavior;  but, increasingly worried about their President’s performance, have focused their attention on ‘higher’ issues.  The recent events concerning abortion and gun rights have energized them and given them renewed hope that the mid-term (2020) elections might still turn in their favor.  

These have been underlying issues for years,  but have never reached such a crescendo of angst as they have within the last few months.  Progressives are outraged that the Supreme Court will overturn Roe v. Wade, finally, ultimately, and correctly returning decisions on such a moral issue to the people; and have milked the tragedies of serial killings into a gun control panorama; and see a chance to finally scratch the Second Amendment. 

This ‘higher’ order of political commitment is nothing new.  For the last two-and-a-half years progressives have used COVID as a tried and true means to increase government power.  In the disingenuous guise of doing the right thing, they turned government from the originalist idea of shepherd, mediator, and arbiter of democratic values into an authoritarian state.  

Masks were the most obvious and ubiquitous symbol of this transformation. Acting by fiat and with distorted logic, the Biden Administration turned the country into a fearful, dangerous place.  COVID was bad enough but the infection of East German-style informer mentality spread more quickly than the virus.  J’accuse! was the cry as neighbors pointed fingers at those not wearing masks, calling them out for their irresponsibility and neglect.  Masks had been transformed from a public health tool to a political meme.

In all three cases – guns, masks, and abortion – the issue has been one-sided, myopic, and simplistic. In the case of guns, there are three ways to decrease the random serial killings that have plagued America: 1) recognize that those who open fire on innocent men, women, and children are demented, crazed, insane, delusional psychotics who have no rational political agenda but are propelled by their own demons; and institute ways to identify these maniacs before they act; 2) arm teachers, guards, and administrators at schools and train them in the use of firearms in an emergency; and 3) gun control. 

The first is the most immediate, the most sensible, and the most doable.  Crazed killers leave an open book discovered only after their death – intimations of violence, images of armed defiance, deranged thoughts of murder and dying in a hail of bullets.  Despite outward appearances, these killers are not the boy next door; but their vile, hateful, inner boy can and should be discovered before it is too late.

The second is already done in many places but can easily be institutionalized.  What is lost by arming school personnel?  Only the faint-hearted and/or deluded worry about an armed weapon in a teacher’s drawer.  Are there problems with this approach?  Of course.  The guns can fall into the wrong hands, teachers may fire errantly or run the other way; but the likelihood of disabling the shooter before he starts rapid fire is good.

The third, gun control, is a non-starter, on the Congressional docket for decades.  A ban on assault weapons might be possible, but has never gotten out of committee; and anything more stringent is impossible. Worth another try, but  options One and Two are clearly more immediately feasible.

Masks never needed to become the aggressive symbol of government overreaching and political sanctimony; and according a modicum of respect for individual responsibility and responsible action could have avoided the divisive political battles that ensued from government authoritarian edict.  

There was never such government response during the Hong Kong flu of 1968, a devastating disease that killed millions.  While precautions were urged, the were never taken up as part of a  cause celebre.  People got sick, some very sick, many died, the disease ran its course, and life went on.  There was no panic, no community mask militias, no gulag mentality. There was then a reasonable balance between government intervention and personal responsibility.  Perhaps as importantly there was no entrenched progressivism which foisted the idea of a better world on the public.  Life was accepted as a given, plusses and minuses.

Abortion, according to the progressive Left is a done deal, an absolute right based on one consideration and one only – a woman’s right to choose.  Yet this conviction ignores and denies millennia of moral thought.  There is more to abruptly ending a life – or a potential life – than simply scraping out the offending bits and be done with the inconvenience.  

Pope John Paul II first raised the notion of expediency, the elimination of a potential life because of venal interests – not the right time, professional conflicts, a bad marriage, feminist urges.  Pope Francis has expanded the idea to environmentalism.  If one is so cavalier and unmindful of the moral implications of abortion, then this indifference can easily extend to all living things.  In this he echoed the Hindu philosophy of ahimsa, non-violence for all life.

Even on a less spiritual and more practical level, given the significant concerns about abortion, shouldn’t decisions about its accessibility be left to the people, to the democratic process? If the majority of a state believes that abortion is wrong, immoral, or murderous, then why shouldn’t their vote against it be legitimately accepted?

The issues of guns, masks, and abortion are clearly complex, multi-faceted, and challenging; and to conflate them, make them a Holy Trinity never to be denied or questioned is profoundly wrong. 

Liberal politics have always been characterized by a big tent – belief in one progressive idea automatically means adherence to another, and all are welcome to the circus.  Anyone believing in gun control must be for abortion and for masks  - and of course for the regulation and limitation of any speech that questions or defies received wisdom. 

Not only is such conflation, such big top groupism, and celebratory righteousness bad enough within the community of true believers; it is worse when it is used to defame those who object to it.  Hence the garbage heap, the piling on of more opprobrium and dirty diapers on conservatives. 

Recent events have given Democrats renewed hope in a Midterm victory; but the infection of wokism has already done its damage.  The tide is turning, and cannot be turned back,.