Has America Gone Crazy the Last Two Weeks?

On a trip that included a leg in a Blackhawk helicopter, I stepped off a KLM jet at LAX Monday after nearly a day in the air and found that apparently, during a short 9-day absence, my country had gone insane.

I was in Kosovo and largely out of touch with things happening back here in the States. I had no Internet, limited phone connectivity, and access only to CNN. This means that while I was gone I received nothing in the way of useful information. So imagine my surprise at all the news when I returned home.

Maybe you were not aware of it, but apparently the United States government now pretty much owns General Motors. I’m going to say that again, because it’s nuts – especially to those of us a certain age (44) who always saw GM as pretty much the Cadillac of American capitalism. The government owns General Motors. Let that notion roll around in your think-gourd for a few seconds.

I’m not really clear on the technical political science term for this phenomenon, since at UC San Diego my major was Coors Light with a minor in failed relationships, but that sounds an awful lot like socialism.

We also seemed to have jettisoned some of our most appealing political conventions while I was gone. Now, Kosovo and the rest of the Balkans have a rather checkered history when it comes to relationships between political competitors. Basically, until recently, the relationship was that you would kill your competitor. This is not a particularly progressive custom, and it helped make the former Yugoslavia the political, social and economic wonderland it is today.

I had a chance to talk to folks there about America and our system of resolving conflicts peacefully through the rule of law, as opposed to grabbing your AK-47 from the cache in the haystack and ethnically cleansing your neighbors. Our Kosovar friends – and they are our friends, as the average Kosovar is considerably more pro-American than the average American – listened eagerly and expressed a firm desire to build their newly independent nation along American lines and to settle future political differences through a structured political process rather than mass murder. Yes, a majority Muslim nation strongly believes that the United States provides the best model for its future development. And yes, I missed that story on the CBS Evening News, too.

So, upon departing my customs colonoscopy at LAX (My final flight did originate in Amsterdam), I was a bit disturbed to find that apparently we Americans have given up on that particular feature of our political system. Some self-righteous creep decided that the proper way to fight against the scourge of late-term abortion was to shoot America’s most notorious late-term abortionist. And some Muslim convert decided to slaughter an American soldier, Private William Long, and wound his buddy because he does not approve of the military campaigns initiated and carried on by our elected leaders. And a white supremacist, that I have to summon up considerable charity to label as a semi-human, decided to go on a deadly shooting spree at the Holocaust Museum.

In just nine days, did we Americans give up on our political process? Why didn’t I get the memo? Now, I’m no fan of Dr. Tiller, but to focus my objections on his activities – activities that whether one likes it or not, our democratic system have decided are legal – is to take the focus off the even greater threat that such political violence poses to our nation. This is America, and if that means anything at all it means that you don’t shoot people because you don’t agree with them.

This is a bigger problem than the murders of a liberal icon, an American soldier and a security guard, Steven Tyrone Johns, who every American should admire. This kind of behavior is a threat to our entire system and must be ruthlessly stamped out. Assuming guilt, Kansas needs to send killer Scott Roeder – who is a Christian like I am a particle physicist – to meet his maker. The same goes for that cretin who gunned down the soldiers – the sooner the good folks of Arkansas dispatch Mr. Abdulhakim Muhammad to his 72 virgins, the better. And as for that degenerate James von Brunn, my only regret is that the museum guards shot him in his brain instead of an organ he actually used.

There’s more. In popular culture, in just nine days, all sense of decency has departed from the public sphere. Now, it’s not as though before my trip our public discourse was at the level of the Algonquin Roundtable, but in my short absence it has taken a nosedive. David Letterman is now making sex jokes about Sarah Palin’s 14 year old daughter as well as calling the Governor “slutty.” Superclassy. Actually, I was more surprised to discover Letterman’s still on the air than to discover he was stealing bits that would embarrass the denizens of the Daily Kos comments pages.

Then there’s David Carradine. Let me sum that up in one word: Whattheunholyhell!?!?!

Can’t I leave you people alone even for nine days?

Kosovar kids pose for U.S. soldiers in the American sector, June 2009

As appalling as so much of our culture can be, there are bright lights out there – I’ve just visited with some of them. Take a moment to think of the American men and women serving all over the world, and especially those keeping the peace in Kosovo. As often as I want to bang my head against the wall in frustration at my society, our people are helping create a vibrant multi-ethnic capitalist pro-American democracy out of a failed socialist dictatorship based on ethnic divisions.

Think about that. Even while we fritter away the glorious nation our founding fathers bequeathed us, some of us are still striving to make their promise a reality for other peoples. And that more than makes up for all the dumb, tacky and evil things that have happened in the last nine days.