Freed?

Vitriolic, confrontational rhetoric, incivililty and threats in public debate, and contrived, paranoid conspiracy theories; inadequate mental health care systems and insurance coverage; and lax to non-existent gun control laws: these are the three major political issues raised by Saturday's massacre in Tucson.

Obvious solutions? Civil discourse and fact-based, rational, non-ideological political debate and compromise; more education and more resources, both governmental and insurance, dedicated to the recognition and treatment of our mental ill fellow humans; and reasonable regulation of firearms, weapons, and ammunition in the public space, along with adequate resources for enforcing them.

These things will never happen in America. Why?

Politics is about passion; passion is, by definition, irrational and excitable. Ideologies are comforting; doctrinaire solutions provide easy, pat, formulaic answers to difficult questions in changing times. Conspiracy theories, however inciteful, make sense—however misguided—of an otherwise chaotic existence. Mental illness is stigmatized in our society (if even recognized) and thus easily swept under the rug. In such a situation of denial, mental health resources are easy to cut, especially in times of budget crunch; and there are few who lobby on behalf of the mentally ill, and the ones who do simply do not have the resources to gain a foothold in the seats of power. Gun lobbyists, on the other hand, are extremely powerful; they have shiploads of money; they buffalo public servants into doing their bidding. Few politicians are courageous enough to stand up to passionate, potentially unstable, gun-carrying constituents who are being egged on by the polarizing propaganda emanating from the media, lobbying, and political institutions (including any number of state and federal judges) bought and paid-for by weapons manufacturers. Fact is, they rightfully fear for their own safety.

So, if "Philosophy simply puts everything before us, nor deduces anything..." (Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations 126), given the above, what can we say about the operant political philosophy of the United States at the present time?

We are willing to countenance fractious political discourse, even if it leads to misguided ideological passion and wacked, paranoid conspiracy theories. And violence. That's the price we pay for free speech. We have other priorities than the care and healing of our mentally ill, even if it results in the sort of unself-governed and untreated psychoses that apparently led a gunman, for whatever reason, to open fire on a group of peaceably-assembled people in Tucson, Arizona last Saturday. And we believe nearly anyone at any time should have access to the sorts of weapons that Jared Loughner had, weapons capable of massacring multiple persons per second.

That is to say, we believe every person—whether wild, angry, or insane (though not Muslim or Communist, apparently)—in the United States should be able to be, or be perceived as, a violent and potentially deadly threat to every other person in the United States at any given time.

American citizens have the freedom to be angry and truculent and violent and threatening in their political speech, to be bat-shit insane, and to purchase and carry weapons capable of killing multiple people in less than a second. By contrast, America citizens do not have the right to be free from the fear of crazy people carrying guns into and shooting up peaceable assemblies.

This is what it means to be free?