Usually when I come to the States, I’m good for a post or
two ranting about the horrors of Fox News encountered at the gym, or the
pleasure of coffee shop/restaurant /shop employees who appear, at least, to be
genuinely friendly…this time, however, I’ve arrived home to a tragedy. You know
what I’m talking about – the shootings in Connecticut. I haven’t said anything
about them online yet. Not because I am not terribly upset by them – I am, more
so than any previous shootings. I’m not especially proud of this , but my
thinking about the land of my birth tends to follow Dan Savage’s island map
from the 2004 Bush re-election, which pictures the coasts and certain blue “islands”
(like Chicago) adrift on a sea of Republican red. While I’ve ached for the victims
and families of shootings in the south or Midwest, it’s a different, less
personal empathy. It’s crazy down/out there, I think. What do you expect in a land (to my mind)
filled with Guns ‘n’ Jesus bumper stickers and (seemingly) mandatory
NRA/Republican Party membership (from birth). (And before someone objects, yes,
I know I’m generalizing – that’s the point.) It’s not going to happen here, in
the north-east, I think. Except now it has, in a state I’ve vacationed in and
travelled through many times. My dad had clients in New Haven, which my twelve
year-old self enjoyed mocking for its preppiness. My aunt used to have a store
in Greenwich. There are photos of me and my cousins, as children, the same ages
as the victims, in the Berkshires, one foot in Connecticut, the other in
Massachusetts. Too close for comfort.
At the same time, comment is entirely too easy. I can’t
change my profile photo, or put some sentiment up on Facebook. I don’t question
the sincerity or motivations of those who do, but my attempts to follow suit
feel inauthentic. Reactions to such moments are personal. Having sustained my
own share of loss, I know I wouldn’t have wanted it filtered through Facebook,
which seems (to me, anyway), a better place for political debate. To that end,
I am vociferously liking friends’ posts calling for action on gun control. This
is the best memorial we can give these children, and what we should have given
to earlier victims of earlier shootings.
Seen from a distance of 3,000+ miles, many American policies
look crazy. The lack of a national insurance program, for one. Gun control, for
another. I am aware that these policies (or lack thereof) are generally defended
with an argument for freedom – you have the freedom, in the United States, to
bear arms. You have the freedom to not have health insurance. Except that’s
not freedom at all. I am currently resident in a country (which, it must be
acknowledged, is also capable of driving me to drink) where it’s much harder to
own guns and where everyone has access to health care. These two facts manifest
practically in my life as freedoms. The freedom to get on a bus, go to a
concert or a busy shopping area and not worry that someone may be carrying a
gun. The freedom to pursue a freelance career, safe in the knowledge that a broken
bone, or random attack of appendicitis won’t leave me facing eviction. These
freedoms are not insignificant.
The United States constitution is allegedly the fruit of
Enlightenment thinking. I don’t have it to hand at the moment, but I’m reminded
of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s writings on social responsibility. The gist is that
if something benefits me, but not my family, then I must yield it for their
greater good. And if it benefits my family, but not my community, then it too
must be yielded. And if it benefits my community, but not my nation, and so on,
and so on… The same thread exists in Jan Patočka and Václav Havel’s thinking – freedom is greatest when we speak
of the freedom of societies from fear. Social freedom trumps individual
freedom. In other words, the right of children to go to school unafraid trumps individual
rights to own/do anything that might impede that right. That is our legacy. That is
what we need to honor and respect. That is
what a land of the free might look like. Perhaps we could work towards that in 2013.
