Fear
I'm a big Michael Moore fan. I'm not really in line with his views of the world, especially with high minimum wages and the return of unions. When he's in his "down with Bush" mode, we're totally in agreement.
However, he's a great filmmaker. When he did the film "Bowling for Columbine," he was searching for the reason that two kids would take up arms and kill their fellow students in Colorado. He searched and searched for the obvious and not so obvious reasons.
Is it because we have so many guns? Not really. Canada has lots of guns and they don't have a murder problem. Is the NRA? Well, they are a problem, but you can't really blame them for this whole situation. Is it because those two boys listened to heavy metal bands like Marilyn Manson? So doubtful. Or was it because the two boys went bowling just before their rampage?
Of course, all these reasons were slightly or massively bogus. But the reason that stood out to me came when he featured a little animated section showing how America has lived in fear ever since this country was founded.
We feared the Indians, so we wiped them out. We fear other countries, so we protect ourselves militarily against them. We fear each other, so we carry guns around to protect ourselves. It is so fear-based.
I would have to say that is something I've noticed being in the U.S. versus Canada, where I grew up. A person carrying a handgun into a bar "because someone might try to shoot me and I want to shoot him first" would be almost unthinkable in Canada. There just wasn't that level of fear. The other big thing is the concept of a "bad area" in an American city. I don't remember that concept from Canada. A "bad area" in American terms is a) somewhere where a lot of black people live and/or b) a place where you are likely to get mugged or beaten or raped. But it is really a myth, for the most part. Just something that lives in the mind of a middle-class white person's mind.
That's my rant for today. I hope you enjoyed it. I have much more for tomorrow's blog entry, based on a conversation I had today with one of my mentors.
6:56:21 PM 
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