Don't leave a voicemail, seriously.

Sometimes when crazyass shit happens in the States (that would be the ol' U S of A), it surprises me again that actual AMERICANS are shocked by it. Do they not come from the same country as me? The country founded by religious zealots who fled their homeland so they would have an easier time oppressing their own community into strict moral behavior that was enforced by capital punishment? That is our legacy, guys. That's who we are.

You want to live in a liberal democracy where terrorism is really considered ABSOLUTELY wrong? Move to Canada. Because the US is not that place. We will *never* be that place. It's just not who we are.

I say this partially in response of the murder of yet another abortion provider. Only partially, though. Remember Oklahoma City? The crazy Idaho nuts? This kind of thing is not going to stop. We fought an entire civil war over people's "rights" to be insane. That's what we do.

Part of my reaction to this is heavily predicated on being from Pensacola, Florida. That probably means nothing in this soundbite culture, but when I was a child my hometown was the wellspring of anti-abortion violence. You couldn't get a prescription for birth control without being pelted with fake (I hope) blood or having someone toss a rosary at your head. That hadn't really changed by the time I moved away from home. If anything, my home county is MORE conservative now. All the rational people have fled areas like this ceding the places to the wackadoodles and religious nutjobs. Them's just the facts. As the youth get educated, they move to cities and places where they can live amongst a more liberal population (for me that was NYC, Canada, California--for other people it might be Boston, Seattle, Portland).

So is it surprising that someone could get it in their head that murder is a decent solution to a social problem? Not when they are surrounded by like-minded people. Not when they can watch FoxNews 24/7 and be told that their views are not only supported by the majority of America but endorsed by Jesus and God himself. Not when they can look in the history books and be informed that this VERY COUNTRY was founded by people who struck out from their satanic homeland to found a righteous country in the image of moral rectitude and godly sainthood the like of which had never been seen since the garden of eden!

What is the solution to this? That *is* a question, isn't it? Perhaps the solution is radical--a law that would force the FCC to fine hate language from news outlets. FoxNews being crippled would go a long way in dampening back the bullshit rhetoric that makes people believe they have a moral leg to stand on with their anti-choice garbage. If you see the actions of abortion provider murderers in light of a culture that heroizes Jesse James and all the other western expansion criminals, you begin to see the situation in a different light. There were people back then who also thought those bank robbers and "Robin Hood heroes" were villains. But they were turned into heroes by the pulp novel industry. Yeah. Think about that a minute. The press turned them into heroes.

Idk, I feel like this sort of violence is just a natural progression in our country's history. The only thing we can do to fix it is to fundamentally change our social contract and the stories we tell about our nation. Also, kick out all the fundamentalists.

I'm going to add this link to this post because I could be part of the solution in some small way rather than just a complainer. Give some money. Was it ever you? Your sister?

This is my official first crackfic for the startrek_crack com. There will be more, but this one was the obvious choice for me. I'll take some prompts after this.

( ST Reboot: Joanna )