You better think

               Think!

Think about what you’re trying to do to me

Yeah, think

               Think! Think!

Let your mind go, let yourself be free

Let’s go back, let’s go back. let’s go way on back when

I didn’t even know you, you came to me and too much you wouldn’t take

I ain’t no psychiatrist, I ain’t no doctor with degree

It don’t take too much high IQ to see what you’re doing to me

                                                                              -- Aretha Franklin

Trying to discuss certain ideas on an internet forum can take on the nature of morass in a New York minute.  The United States, with its complex history, its complex problems, and lofty social justice standards, facts and reason can quickly become bogged down in emotion, myth, and misrepresentation of facts.  In a personal, non-professional opinion, most people are more likely to be spooked or otherwise emotionally moved into unreason than they are to lie themselves into a distorted view of reality.  It simply is not worth the effort to entertain a false reality without a payoff.  The effects can be too severe.  It pays to be level headed, and it is my opinion that most people endeavor to be so as often as possible.  

Conversely, there are situations where a person will entertain an alternate view of reality.  Like the first case, the choice will center on some sort of personal gain.  Two such motivations typically are financial or political gain.  Take the recent example of Michele Bachmann and her claim that Huma Abedin, aide to Hillary Clinton, and wife to Anthony Weiner, is an undercover operative of the Muslim Brotherhood.  Mrs. Bachmann is entertaining an astonishing alternate reality with this statement.  Presumably she faces substantial risk for such an absurd, apparently delusional public position.  Aside from possibly being insane herself, why would she do it?

Don’t be too quick to presume insanity rather than outrageous by design.  She did not call her Cinderella or Snow White.  (Certainly not Snow White).  This would be crazy with no benefit.  Rep. Bachmann chose a religion, and a political value for her accusation which has a political/financial benefit to her.  This lie was selected with a purpose.  Calling Huma a bunny rabbit would have no payoff.  Calling her a secret operative for a religious party from another country does.  Why?

Americans can be spooked into unreason with religion, race, nationality, etc.  Carefully played and applied, delusion pays.  It pays in political influence and it pays in money.  

Now consider a view as absurd as an aide to the Secretary of State of the United States working as an undercover agent of a foreign nation.  I submit to you that the notion that Trayvon Martin was the assailant and George Zimmerman was the victim in the killing that occurred on February 26, 2012, is as absurd, and the result of a similar sort of unreason, which itself results from a similar political motivation for misrepresentation.  In this case, the dead person walked into an irrational stew of the presence of a side arm, a psychologically maladjusted 28 year old young man, and a deeply flawed political ideology.  Subtract one of those elements, and Trayvon Martin would likely be alive today.

The fact that a gun was present is not disputed, so I proceed to the next part of the theory, flawed ideology.  The point here is that “Stand Your Ground”, which contributed to this particular event, if a flawed law, from flawed ideology, based upon emotion/unreason, for someone’s political power and/or financial gain.  The financial gain of selling more guns with greater ease is not disputed, so I proceed to the next part, the unreason/emotion of gun laws.

In a previous post, I mentioned offered that our close embrace of guns in the U.S., which differs from many places in the advanced, free world, is as closely related, or more related to our complex plantation economy past as it is to concerns about guaranteeing good government, or personal safety, or duck hunting.  (Assault rifles are not used for duck hunting.  On to the next part.)  In a single comment thread, the comments seemed to some to be a morass of gun rights, Aurora Colorado, and Trayvon Martin.  As broad as those apparently disparate events seemed, there is a significant common thread.  The synthesis was explained by “L in the Southeast”, Lezlie, in her July 24, 1:11 comment.  

Now, let’s look at unreason (fear), and race with regard to guns.  Consider the following objective studies.

First, it is a fascinating, albeit tragic fact that the states with a strongest history of lynchings in the U.S. are also the states with the most frequent death penalty convictions currently.  The demographics of these two things have a heavy racial component which should be intuitive.  (It is not disputed that blacks get the death penalty at a higher rate in the U.S. than whites under similar circumstances.  Moving on.)  Lynching, ‘nuff said.

Then, overlay that map with a map of the 20 deadliest gun states.  This collection meshes closely with the states with the easiest access to guns.  As a result, accidents and suicides are included in this particular compilation of data, which is a valid consideration in the argument for greater gun regulation.  (Part of the current problem. Moving on.)

These statistics show that the myth of gun use does not meet the reality of safer individuals and/or better government.  These statistics show a racial element in the desire for ready access to guns on a broad basis.  And these statistics show that belief in the victimization of a symbol like George Zimmerman are more emotional response to a misperceived racial threat, than they are a realistic assessment of forces in play.  Trayvon Martin was an unarmed teen, carrying iced tea and Skittles.  Huma Abedin is an aide to the Secretary of State of the United States, was born in Kalamazoo Michigan, and is married to a former U.S. Congressman.  The monster making of ordinary American citizens in an old tradition.  It pays some in political power, and pays some in financial power, and it pays some in both.  Political power and money.  Is there any wonder why, as Chauncey DeVega pointed out in his excellent post, that white men, ALL white men, are not made monsters, as it attempted with others in this process?  Money and power belong to white men in America.  It simply would not pay to apply this process to them.