grandstands

Twitter feeds are like drunken mis-speaks. They're the bytes of thought typed to pass—hopefully. Why does Donald Trump tweet anything? He says foolish enough things live, in person, when the “whole world is watching.” He says them and mostly it ruins him, loses credibility (if he ever had any), and points his oar-less rowboat upstream.

In response to the killing in Orlando he wondered nimbly when President Obama would ever say the words radical Islamic terrorism. Our president saw it for what it was, no more, no less. He said live—as the whole world watched—the words acts of terror and hate. On the subtext the difference is negligible. It is not really relevant that the Orlando gunner was Islamic (or of Islamic descent) and radical. What is pertinent, TO THE FAMILIES OF THE FALLEN, is simply that it was an act of terror obviously—in this case—motivated by a bigoted hatred of gays.

Presiding over insanity

Orlando marked the deadliest attack in America since September 11, 2001. The fact that 9/11 was the act of natural-born Islamic terrorists shares no common link to Orlando. As President Obama said, it was an act of terror and hate carried out but estranged, deranged, usually mentally unstable people. In this case the gunman had been investigated by the FBI on more than one occasion, but qualified to be sold a firearm. In almost all of the cases of people opening fire on citizens it surfaces that the assailant had some “red flag” in their psychological history that was missed. Even the September 2001 attack had a red flag early on that was missed. Eden Prairie, Minnesota airport was the fight school that decided to teach Arabic students who only wanted to fly a plane. They did not need to know how to land the plane. In 2007 Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people at Virginia Tech. A simple check of his records at the school would have revealed that the senior had a severe anxiety disorder which placed him in special education classes. In more than a dozen mass shootings during the Obama Administration the president has addressed the nation with a similar message. In each instance he conveyed grief and prayers at the fallen, but also stated how easily available guns were to the people who committed these acts of terror. He simply said we “the people” could decide what kind of country we want to be—one who makes guns available to anyone, regardless of their background, or one that makes it harder (not illegal) to buy a gun.

Xenophobic

The targeting of a gay nightclub is disturbing. It is a fact that is hard to ignore in light of Trump's attempt to grandstand from the Orlando shooting politically. The fact that the shooter was an Islamic-American is less and less relevant. This was a hate crime and it could just as well have been carried out by any extreme group. His seizing of the opportunity for political gain, his criticism of Obama only add to his image as a racist and his genuine disinterest in what's best for America.

Turn around fair play

Conservatives routinely shoot themselves in the foot. They love their guns and don't care about the consequences their accessibility can have, even if it decimates the lives of children—products of the unborn lives they fought so valiantly to protect. They stoke the fires of the NRA, a group who promotes legislation that enables mass shooters to be banned from boarding a plane but not from being sold a gun. Congress has the power to declare war. The Republicans, following the 2014 elections, have control of both the house and the senate. Declare war on ISIS. If a war were declared the FBI would have more latitude in dealing with Omar Mateen. The three FBI investigations in Mateen's past still did not disqualify him from being sold a gun—if we war at war with the Islamic State he would not qualify.

The love you take

In the end it come down to a too structured world. Love is there, somewhere. It gets blurred by politicians and groups that contort a faith into a hateful code. There is paranoia, xenophobia, ethnocentrism, self-righteous patriotism, egotism, and (in this case) homophobia stirring the pot. Each generation concocts new reasons to hate each other. Government erects barriers, political boundaries, to getting along. And, as web designs spread their message of love around the world, hateful propaganda slips in like one of those shot feet in a shoe.