A gun on a T-shirt at work spells trouble ahead for all sides
A White man over 6 feet tall with a wiry, muscular build walked around in the outdoor adventure store where I work in Downtown Seattle today. He was dressed in solid black clothing. Black shorts cut off below the knees. Shiny steel pocket chain. Solid black, tank top muscle shirt. Black, military style baseball cap. Across his chest on the shirt was a stylized white image of an AR-15-style semi-automatic assault rifle. You can guess where this is going, yes? Underneath the AR-15, however, was stamped in white letters the following words, “This machine kills racists.” This was on the day after the attempt on the life of former President Donald Trump.
Yes, Trump is a bigot. He usurped the Election of 2016 even tho he lost by the greatest margin ever in a case where he intimidated the Electoral College delegates to vote for him. He attempted a sloppy, incompetent coup to maintain power on the 6th of January 2021. He had his destructive mob of followers attempt to lynch his own Vice-President as well as the Speaker of the House as Congress attempted to certify the carefully tabulated EC vote. This crooked, wannabe dictator is a known racist, misogynist, sexist, homophobe, adulterer, and a convicted felon who calls everyone else crooked liars. Yet solving political disagreements with violence is wrong. If civil warfare breaks out and one is defending themselves and their loved ones against aggression, then, OK, fight and kill if necessary as an absolute last resort. Now I loathe Donald Trump and his rabid MAGA cult of weird, enraged Maggots, but the man doesn’t deserve to be killed. He deserves to be put on trial on multiple counts of treason and if found guilty, sentenced accordingly. But don’t shoot the man. Arrest him, treat his person with respect even as he abuses everyone else, and put this particular human on trial.
There are people on both sides armed and arming themselves. Not all gun nuts are on the Right. The Left has its share, too. War, however, obliterates the moderate middle and forces people to pick a side to fight or flee in fright or freeze with your head down in fawning compliance.
Meanwhile, this White American adult male with the militant Leftist muscle shirt spouting murderous rhetoric to sound cool and anti-racist continued to shop around. I avoided interacting with him as I sought to be professional on the job, but, hey, if civil war broke out he and I would be on the same side. I did keep an eye out for any offended Trump-supporter who might challenge him. We get customers from all over the nation and the world in our global business. The man seemed friendly and moved about the store with fluid grace. With him was a female partner and child. He treated the child as his own in a gentle, loving way while wearing the white emblem of a firearm on his black shirt. Yes, I felt he was inappropriate and insensitive to wear his particular shirt on this day, and at the same time we would be on the same side if war broke out. Because otherwise I’m a moderate too old to fight for whom the devastation of all-out civil war in this post-industrial empire would be a nightmare apocalypse sucking in the rest of the planet.
What do you think and feel about these matters? Oh, and by the way, if you one of those wincing, scoffing cynics with sociopathic tendencies who dismiss feelings as irrelevant, then know your thoughts are not relevant either regardless of how cerebral and aloof your intellect may be. You still will have to choose along with the rest of us to flee, fight, freeze, or fawn.
William Dudley Bass
Sunday 14 July 2024
Monday 29 July 2024
Shoreline/Seattle, Washington
USA
Copyright © 2024 by William Dudley Bass. All Rights Reserved by the Author & his Descendants until we Humans establish Wise Stewardship over and for our Earth and Solarian Commons. Thank you.