Take two and call the coroner in the morning

I am fairly speechless, yet again. My thoughtful friend Joe Flower has a post up at THCB, "The Healthcare System Link in the San Bernardino Shootings." I suspect he'll get roundly flamed in the comments.

I just don't know what to say. My wife and I just returned from a 12-day vacation, including a magical, soothing 35th anniversary stay in a cabin in Gatlinburg. The day-long "active shooter situation" unfolding San Bernardino mass killing news yesterday sucked the air out of my soul. I'd intended to get back on topic.

Paris, Colorado, Oregon, NOLA, etc, the bodies continue to pile up.

I commented on Facebook in response to one of the predictable Wild West we-all-need-to-be-armed-for-protection posts:

Every time there's a new (and increasingly frequent) mass shooting, yet another thousand Straw Man fallacies bloom, most of them unoriginal retreads of the old ones replete with the usual gotcha false dilemma hypotheticals.

The interesting thing about that comment is that virtually everyone holding polarized opinions at the extremes of the gun control issue assumed I was referring to those on the other side of the debate.

I rather expect nothing will change. Except, perhaps, for the worse.

Another troubling thought I had:

There is a disturbing, increasing Islamophobic eliminationist /genocidal sentiment in the United States nowadays (particularly in the wake of San Bernardino) along the lines of "there's no such thing as a peaceful Muslim. We need to turn Islam into a glass parking lot" (as if "Islam" were a fixed geographical location).

Muslims comprise roughly 23% of total world population, 1.7 billion (widely dispersed people) out of 7.3 billion humans. Those who call for "wiping out Islam" really don't have a clue as to what they're advocating. Aside from the fact that it would be genocide on an unprecedented scale, there's no way it would ever get accomplished. Moreover, once you started down that path (killing people NOT because of their hostile actions, but because of their religion and culture), you couldn't simply stop after killing "x" percent of them. You'd only ensure that you had produced even more enemies amid the survivors. Exponentially so.

Hitler thought he could wipe out the Jews (and fully intended to do so). At the time there were roughly 16 million of them worldwide. He only managed to eliminate roughly a "mere" 6 million. 1.7 BILLION Muslims? People need to think through what they're calling for, if for no other reason than pure practical self-interest, broader moral considerations aside.

Posted by one of my Facebook "friends."

"If more good people had concealed-carry permits, then we could end those Muslims." - Jerry Falwell Jr.

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