When The Next One Happens

I've long since become desensitized to mass shootings.  I didn't stop caring that innocent people keep getting murdered.  I'll never stop caring about that.  I've just stopped being interested in the story when it happens.  And I've stopped pretending we're going to do a damn thing to stop it from happening.

We're not going to do anything about it.  We're going to keep letting right wing politicians and pundits tell us that it's "too soon" to talk about gun control because that's "politicizing a tragedy".  We won't actually fight for any real gun reform, even though we know it would work.

We're going to keep letting them distract from the gun issue to make it about mental illness.  But we won't fight for any meaningful action about mental illness.  We'll let them scapegoat the mentally ill and blame them for these tragedies while doing nothing to help either problem.

We're going to keep letting them blame secularism rather than the guns.  They'll keep saying people get murdered because they need Jesus.  Sure, we'll bitch about them on the Internet.  But we won't put them in their place anywhere of consequence, like a legislature.

We're so used to these things happening, Presidential candidates casually refer to "the next one".  Because we all know there will be more.

We're not going to do anything to fix it.  We've even shown indifference to elementary school children being murdered.  After ignoring that, what the fuck would it take for us to fix it.

The pattern is so predictable, The Daily Show can joke about prerecording their responses to it.  Anyone could prerecord a response to the next one and have it work.  Because it's the same fucking thing every time.

Mass shootings are a part of our culture that, for a variety reasons, we're not ready to give up.  I refuse to pretend we are ready until we are actually doing something outside of the script.

Unfortunately, that time isn't coming any time soon.

How do I know?  I wrote most of this after the Aurora shooting and just updated it with current references.

I can write this without even mentioning which shooting, and most people reading it will probably have a different one in mind.  Especially since there have been 4 shootings since the one I most recently wrote this for.

That Time My Baby Was Assaulted with $21

This morning, Omaha Atheists joined some others at our local Planned Parenthood clinic to counter their anti-choice protesters.  

We knew we'd encounter some shitty behavior from them, but I still wasn't expecting my 16 week old baby to be assaulted.

It was mid-morning, so it was kinda cold out.  My girlfriend, Rosalyn had the baby in her jacket.  It was zipped up, and he was in the wrap low enough to make her look pregnant.  We noticed several of the protesters trying to figure out if the bump was a real baby or a fetus.

Later in the day, it had warmed up and she had removed the jacket, making the baby quite visible.  It was after this that a woman in a red hat approached her.  This woman had been attempting to give balloons with "Pro-Life" propaganda to the children there.  After my girlfriend politely refused her offer of balloons, she said that she had looked in her purse for her and shoved a wad of cash into my girlfriend's shirt.  When this happened, it was very clear to her that a baby was there.

That money, $21, was immediately walked over the Planned Parenthood staff as a donation.  Thanks for the donation, anti-choice people!

I later explained to her that she had assaulted a baby and the problem with shoving germ filled money in the face of a preemie.  Her response was to not say a word and walk away.

Later, I was explaining what had happened to some of the red hat lady's fellow protesters.  Their response was, "Well, then call the cops."  I don't think she appreciated how close that was to happening and how lucky she was that it didn't.

Earlier, the people pictured above, were having a prayer circle.  So I took that photo to document the hypocrisy.  The guy looking at the camera was attempting to photobomb with a wave.  After having read the sign pictured.  They are oblivious to their hypocrisy and brazen about not caring.

A while later, my step-son got curious about the prayer circle.

Unfortunately, he didn't make it out of the circle without being given a small crucifix.  The cross was promptly returned to the group with a request to not hand our children things.  The man acknowledged me by saying "thank you" for me returning the cross.  He never really acknowledged that he'd done anything wrong or apologized.

This became more apparent later when they were leaving and he attempted to hand a quarter to our oldest as they walked by him.  I yelled at him to stop trying to hand things to my kids, so he took a few more steps and handed it to the girl instead.  After being chastised by multiple atheists for involving the kids, a different guy said "sorry" a few times and then they all disappeared.

I get that they do shitty things.  I even get that they have no qualms about involving children.  Ultimately, I'm not even that surprised that they were all okay with assaulting a fucking baby.  And that lack of surprise says all that needs to be said about the morality of these people.

I'll leave you with this sample of how Omaha Atheists behaved during the same event.