In My Time
This is one of those days when words begin to fail me. I’ve just had my 78th birthday and I’m on my sixth assassination or assassination attempt of a US president or candidate for president, and all of those happened in the last sixty years of my life. John F. and Bobby Kennedy were the only successful attempts, and they were followed by George Wallace, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, and now Donald Trump. That seems like a lot. I don’t know of another democracy that can match that record.
This makes me wonder why anyone would run for the office because it seems a dangerous occupation. In fact all of politics feels dangerous, and here’s a basic list of political assassinations in the US at all levels, although I can’t vouch for it’s accuracy. I guess the point is that we seem ready to settle problems with guns even when they’re just mental problems. And I can’t fathom the process that goes, I don’t like this guy so I’m going to shoot him.
I wish I had some answers, but I think they go deeper than we need to control guns. We’re not a happy country. And I’d say, anymore, but a close look at our history exposes a lot of unhappiness, contention, anger, and hate to use a hard to use term. And what makes it all the more inexplicable to me is that the quality of our lives has always improved and even now we live with unparalleled abundance and convenience. So, why the anger and why the despair and is it real or only imagined? And will it ever be possible to close the off-ramp to violence?