In The Beginning Was The Word

Greetings, gentle readers.
One thing that I've noticed is that a large number of people who are unable to understand or use a priori argumentation tend to rely on textual support for their arguments.  The general idea would be that if the words written on a page are old and people still read them, the ideas behind those words must be unassailable.  When asked if something is right or wrong, a lot of people will rely on old books to derive an answer rather than any innate sense of justice or morality.
For example, given the question, "Is it right for a government to execute a citizen for the crime of murder?" you may get people appealing to:

• some sort of religious text.  An eye for an eye turns another cheek and chops the hand off the perpetrating offender who is shamed in the eye of god, blah, blah, blah.  Old Testament, New Testament, Talmud, Torah, Pentateuch, Koran, Hadith, Vedas, Upanishads, whatever. 
  For example, "As the (good/holy/last/only) book says, 'God hath dispassionately presided over the painful and lonely expiration of every living thing throughout eternity, and has never given a fig about any of them.'"
• some sort of political text.  Americans in particular will trot out the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Federalist Papers, or the dissenting opinions of Clarence Thomas (see page 40 HERE).  For example, "The Founding Fathers were absolutely 100% in favour of the death penalty, as Alexander Hamilton demonstrated after he was shot by Aaron Burr and wrote 'Ah, fair fucks to him' in the margins of his diary."
• the writings of another philosopher who attempted to use anything other than a priori thinking, generally a reductionist whose works have been published in easy-to-read print.  For example, "Spinoza thought that capital punishment gave the state too much power in an ethical realm.  That sort of power is better left in the hands of the pogroms."

As you may have guessed by this point, I suggest that the only authentic response is an existential one.  An individual must make that moral judgement and assume the responsibilities alone.
Right.  That's morality, all summed up in a tidy package.

Mass Shootings

In the wake of the latest mass shooting (at time of writing, it was the one in Sutherland Springs), I would just like to throw my four comments at it.

The President

Speaking from Japan, the President of the United States blamed the most recent slaughter of innocents on a "mental health problem."  Interesting to note that the President himself signed a bill in February 2017 (H.J. Res 40) that killed a regulation (81 Fed. Reg. 91702) that would have restricted access of the mentally handicapped and violently diagnosed to firearms.  In short, the current administration has vigorously lifted restrictions and regulations on firearms, SPECIFICALLY as it applies to mental health issues.  Oh, and the sitting House of Representatives and Senate majorities have, over the past 3 years, cut $4.3 billion from mental health services budgets. 
Conclusion:  don't look for any help here.  Start shopping for the "bargain-sized" coffins for your kids now.

The NRA

From NBC News:

Everytown For Gun Safety President John Feinblatt said he expected more gun control rollbacks from the Trump administration. In a statement to NBC News, he called the action "just the first item on the gun lobby’s wish list" and accused the National Rifle Association of "pushing more guns, for more people, in more places."

The NRA are going to do two things with this massacre:  twist the narrative, and exploit paranoia.  First, they are going to claim that the "good guy with a gun" actually saved the day here and protected the happy people of Sutherland Springs.  There is some evidence to suggest that AFTER 26 people were shot dead and 20 others wounded, a guy with a rifle chased the perpetrator away.  In a fwe days, some segments of the media will praise this person as a hero.
Second, the NRA will link any attempt to impose some sort of regulation on firearms as a draconian rescinding of the Second Amendment, and will only lead to to government seizing everyone's guns.  The elected government will become a tyrannical totalitarian police state, and resistance without firearms is futile, so all free will and democracy will perish.
Conclusion:  Let the propaganda wars begin.  You need guns to protect your freedom, and your freedom is in danger.  Be very afraid and purchase more ammunition.

The Media

This is the war of sociology and terminology.  Can white people be termed "terrorists"?  How much of a factor does gender play in the motivations for these acts?  Are white, anglo-saxon, christian males "at risk" for annihilist tendencies?  This is a wonderful smokescreen.  While media talking heads debate for hours on end whether it is appropriate or culturally acceptable to label, generalize, stereotype, or demonstrate sufficient awareness of any person or group involved in any element of the event.  Entire column inches will be expended, glowing with righteous indignation at the fact that a reporter mentioned a witness's weight, and is therefore an example of institutional rape-culture that only addresses gender through body-shaming.  The fact that all involved were ankle-deep in blood and amniotic fluid will be dismissed as incidental to the more germane social issues.
Conclusion:  Whatever news outlet gets the most retweets wins.  The families of the corpses lose.

The Church

More hopes and prayers.  As a matter of fact, all entities involved should endorse this course of action, since it doesn't harm anyone's profit margins.  In fact, the more hoping and praying that actually takes place inside church structures, the easier it will be for the next AR-15 wielding lunatic to find his Thanksgiving crop and rack up a sizable harvest of mutilated and twisted bodies.
Conclusion:  At time of writing, looking to any organized religion for help is the same as using a daily horoscope to raise your children - it's worse than trying to find your own answers.

What do I reckon?  I think that health care is a human right to which all American citizens are entitled, as enshrined in the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States.  If one considers the Second Amendment of that same constitution to be similarly binding, then I say that we should extend it logically.  As all Americans should be guaranteed welfare by its government, all American citizens should be issued state-of-the-art killing weapons.  Multiple weapons.  And ammunition.  Every citizen in the union should be armed to the teeth, even those that think that an armed war of secession against that union is somehow justified and patriotic.
Those that wish to blur the distinction between church and state and have prayer in science classrooms, political rallies, nuclear reaction chambers, septic tanks, and meetings of the National Audubon Society should be encouraged to do so, provided that they wear big symbols consisting of concentric red and white circles on their backs.

Playlist

• Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner, by Warren Zevon
• One of Those Rivers, by Dodgy
• Look Out There's a Monster Coming, by the Bonzo Doo Dah Dog Band
• Bus Stop, by the Hollies

Hmm.  Actually, those song titles almost add up to a coherent narrative all by themselves.
In any event, that is about all that I've got energy to type out today.  I'll be back soon to discuss the awful train-wreck that was Hillary Clinton's network of Super-PACs, beltway insiders, State Department contacts, DNC toadies, and the lickspittle hangers-on waiting to suckle at the withered teats of the presumed 45th President of the United States.  That's right, they created and "elevated" Donald Trump as a "pied piper" candidate on the ASSUMPTION that they would beat him in the general election.  Who made the monster?  Hillary, queen of regime-change, did.
Back at you with all of the evidence from the WikiLeaks vaults.
Cheers,
—mARKUS