Where There’s A Whip
In the Lord of the Rings story by JRR Tolkien, the cartoon version has a scene of orc infantry being marched to war. While supervised by an officer wielding a whip they sing, “Don’t want to go to war today,–but where there’s a whip there is a way.”
The scene came to mind as I read a paragraph or two of the NY Times front page story that the Florida legislature declined to ban assault style weapons on a party line vote. This was predicable and shocking–a off-hand insult to the families of the 17 dead at Douglas High School. With the whip of money, a long history of donations offered in exchange for unconditional support of the interests of NRA pro-gun ideology, and with a litany of 2nd amendment/land-of-the-free/a bulwark-against-tyranny rationalizations –the Republican dominated Florida legislature acted with little debate.
Oh hey, maybe bump-stocks will be banned, as yesterday the President said that he supported a ban. (One does not need a bump stock to empty a 30 round magazine in a few seconds)
So the rest of the country is dragged into a lethal future by a studied ignorance, bought and paid for, by elected officials who will talk the issue “to death”, while doing nothing, until the emotional passion of the friends and relatives of the dead subside. Please forgive the long sentence. Doing nothing in the face of a technology designed for maximum efficiency at killing entails a future with many unnecessary corpses.
We are being talked to death.
Yes, I am angry.
2 thoughts on “Where There’s A Whip”
I would like to make a slight but significant correction. The Florida legislature voted to not open the floor to debate on the subject. It wasn’t even a vote on any proposed legislation, but just to allow the ability of those in attendance to discuss the possibility of some gun restrictions. In other words, it was the Republican legislators’ version of putting their fingers in their collective ears and shouting “LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA” until the subject went away.
And as far as as the promises of DT to work on “some restrictions.” Been there, heard that, nothing happens.
Nothing less than an informal, “legal” suppression of free speech. (They voted
not to discuss the matter) The first amendment, etc. is worth very little if there are informal workarounds. And elected officials from gerrymandered districts have very little to fear from voters.