Current Affairs - 2022 update on the USA

As we approach the end of 2022 I thought an update about what’s being happening in the USA was in order.

US gun laws (or the lack of them).
Firstly, throughout the past year there has been a continuation of gun massacres - some in shopping malls and churches and others, once again, in schools. In the aftermath of those crimes we continue to have some in the NRA, while also (usually) preaching Christian values, spout disgusting and evil lies in order that their fun continues to come before the lives of innocent children.
Some of those evil people continue to claim that restricting access to guns is not the answer. They claim that guns don’t kill but it’s people who do. They even claim that the answer is even more guns and that teachers should be armed to protect their students. The evil insanity of those claims are so obvious it is difficult to understand why those mouthpieces of the NRA are not locked up.
If more guns was the answer then why are there so few gun massacres in countries which do operate strict gun controls? Yes, there are some gun massacres in countries with stricter controls - but very few. Yes! It’s people who kill other people - but it’s guns which allow those sick and evil perpetrators to kill in the numbers that they do. Take those guns away and the numbers killed by them fall to a tiny fraction of what guns do. As for arming the teachers? It’s my understanding that even soldiers who kill on the battlefield can suffer from PTS - to expect already under stress teachers to also kill people is simply incomprehensible.
Most citizens of the USA claim it’s a constitutional right to bear arms - and even some of those affected by gun crime seem to fall back on this in order to prevent sensible change. But it should be kept in mind that the US Constitution was written over two hundred years ago at a time when much of the country was a wild frontier with outlaws and dangerous wild animals around (not to mention the native Americans that still needed slaughtering). This is no longer the case and it’s time the constitution of the USA was updated to reflect those changes. I would further argue that the inability of the US to recognise this, and change it’s constitution, is a sign of the country’s insanity. Yes, there are still huge areas of wild, natural land in the USA with wild and dangerous animals about, but it should be possible to restrict the use of guns to those areas and to citizens who have a genuine need to arm themselves. It should also be easy to ban the use of automatic and semi-automatic assault weapons of the type used by an army.
But is the proliferation and easy access to guns the sole problem here? I suspect not. I suspect that it’s the ethos of the US that creates the sick and evil who carry out these massacres. This ethos seems to demand only personal success. That could, for example, be wealth through business, educational achievement or being famous (e.g., a film or rock star) - whichever it is, an individual is deemed a failure if one or the other is not achieved. There seems to be no consideration of being happy, or being nice, or being considerate - it’s all achieve success or be a failure. I suspect that many of those that pick up guns to commit slaughter, usually young men, have come to realise that they are not going to achieve any of the success expected, and demanded, of them - and frustration and anger takes over. In the case of these young men it might also be down to realising that they are not going to achieve a relationship with a woman (or partner) of their dreams - as the American dream also seems to demand. To make matters worse, they have grown up in this poisoned, selfish and greedy atmosphere and that makes insanity all the more likely by the time they have become young adults. The slaughter of the innocent then seems like the only way to achieve the fame expected of them. Maybe even revenge upon the school or community which failed them (as they see it)? Very few will react to this pressure in such a hideous way - but it does not surprise me, when you combine mental instability with guns, that the outcome can occasionally, but still far too often, result in one of those massacres. I am not, however, saying that ambition for personal success is wrong (it can be something very positive that helps us all) - just that it appears to be the sole measure of success in the US and that, I suggest, is not healthy.
The one glimmer of hope in all of this is that both the Senate and the House Of Representatives have passed a new law which limits access to guns for those under twenty one years of age. This is far short of what is needed - but it is a move in the right direction and it had support from both Republicans and Democrats.

US abortion laws (after the Supreme Court overturns Wade/Roe).
During the past year we also had the US Supreme Court reverse the earlier judgment (1973) in what has become known as Wade/Roe.This earlier judgment, by a more liberal Supreme Court than the current one, basically gave all US women the right to have an abortion. The reversal of this has allowed some (very) conservative states to make it almost impossible for a women to get an abortion even if the pregnancy resulted from a rape or some other serious outcome will result from the birth (like the mother dying). It’s now, if I understand correctly, very difficult to impossible for a woman to get an abortion in about fifty percent of US states - a situation which has greatly angered many women in the country.
Now, I’m not female so I’m not going to say too much on this topic. At the same time those seeking to stop both gun control and abortions seem to come from the same fundamentalist, right wing view of the World. I have to wonder if they have joined forces so that more children can be born in order to provide more targets for the sick, mad and evil murders?
Sick jokes aside, it strikes me that the argument on abortion boils down to two factors: a philosophical one and a medical one. When does a human being become a human being? Is it at the point of conception (forgetting, for now, that some extreme fundamentalists even object to contraception) or is it as soon as the baby has exited the birth canal - or is it when the fetus develops a nervous system capable of feeling pain? I would say it’s when a nervous system has developed to the point where pain is likely and for that we have to rely on the medical people informing us when this is the case (how many weeks or months after conception). I don’t think anyone else can say. After that, under normal circumstances, abortion should not be allowed because I would say that murder is being committed, just as a sick, evil gunman is committing murder when he (usually) guns down dozens in school class rooms, shopping malls and churches. At the same time there should be sufficient flexibility in any regulations that take into account special and unusual circumstances.

One positive from this Supreme Court reversal seems to be that many women, at the recent mid-term elections, voted against the reactionary, right wing Republican Party. This resulted in them not winning as big a majority in House Of Representatives as they had hoped to do (and were expected to do) and not managing to win the Senate at all. I have to say that I’m no great lover of either main US parties but I think I prefer the slightly more liberal Democrats over the Republicans.

Another positive result from this is that Donald Trump, despite recently declaring he was going to run for president again, now looks less likely to get the Republican party nomination than he did just a few weeks ago. It seems that many in the GOP now see him as a liability rather than a winner. We can but hope. However, if Trump does get back to being president (legal issues ignored for now) then this would only confirm the extent to which the USA is a mad, bad and very dangerous country.

Observations.
It needs to be stated, however, that the whole Wade/Roe controversy only arose because a right wing president, in my view also a liar, a cheat and a criminal, took advantage of the fact that several liberal justices had either retired or died. Making use of those vacancies he appointed right wing, Republican supporting justices. This moved the balance of the Supreme Court to the right and this helped bring about judgments more in line with Donald Trump’s own twisted vision. It could, of course, be argued that past Democratic presidents did the same thing but the other way about - such that the Supreme Court had a more liberal, Democratic outlook.
But therein lies the point I wish to make. Surely there is a better way to appoint judges to the Supreme Court so that such manipulation does not happen? Surely there could be some way for automatic promotion to the Supreme Court for judges at the level immediately below this? Maybe taking into account the number of cases presided over? Maybe voted for by all judges at this lower level plus the remaining Supreme Court judges? Maybe with a term of sitting on the Supreme Court of no more than ten years? Something along these lines would help to ensure that the Supreme Court was separated from political interference as much as it could be. Also keep in mind that it very much looks like Trump, in making these appointments, was seeking to ensure not just his right wing views being supported but also that he’d have ‘tame’ Supreme Court justices to assist him in any challenges to election results he didn’t like - or even later prosecutions he’d like even less. It would appear that, on the whole, his ‘tame’ judges failed him in this respect. It would appear that his ‘tame’ justices were not quite as twisted and willing to ignore the law as he hoped they’d be. Judges don’t make the law and, it seems, there was only so far they could go in supporting Trump’s lies. Having said that, the US could really do with addressing this issue and potential problem if it wishes to ensure that it’s democracy is protected in the future from the likes of a second Trump presidency or even a future president willing to go even further and force through changes to the law..

I live in a tourist area of Scotland and over the summer months I can often enough find myself in the company of US citizens. Now, I know I shouldn’t, but I always feel uncomfortable when this is the case. Why? Well, for me, about fifty percent of the US population are sick, evil people and I don’t really want to be in their company any more than I’d like to be in the company of someone like Hitler. I fear to develop any serious conversation with people from the US in case I find they are evil and extremely right wing monsters that I’d rather were not alive never mind wandering around where I live! Having said that, I do know that there are many decent folk from the US but I just don’t know how to recognise them. Maybe someone should develop a badge that decent folks from the States can wear to make themselves known - kind of a reverse MAGA badge and slogan? The idea of ‘Make America Great Again’ is OK - it’s how these MAGA supporters want to achieve this that worries and upsets me.

There have been many other things of interest in the US over the past year but the above are, for me, the important ones.