Thoughts and Prayers Are Useless Because Stuff Happens
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By Carol Morgan
If I hear one more politician say, “Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families,” I may vomit. In the context of this preventable tragedy, thoughts and prayers mean absolutely nothing; zilch, nada, zero, nil, zip…
Like kissing babies and shaking hands, it’s a perfunctory routine gesture in the political p.r. machine, one of the enumerated duties in the job description of an elected official. And it’s very possible it was not written by the officeholder, but rather by a member of his/her staff.
The victims don’t need your thoughts and prayers. They’re dead.
And they’re dead because in order to placate your vocal moneyed constituents, you did nothing.
No amount of thoughts and prayers will change your negligence or erase your disingenuousness. Your thoughts and prayers are inadequate. They are insufficient.
You’ve always possessed the power to do something, but you won’t and I suspect that won’t change in the future. In lieu of action, you offer thoughts and prayers.
It’s ironic that the Jeb! “response” to the Oregon shootings was “stuff happens”. He was more honest than the “thoughts and prayers” people. He merely vocalized what the “t and p” group was thinking.
When you do nothing about the national epidemic of gun violence, then, indeed…stuff happens.
On the very same day that politicians offered their thoughts and prayers for the victims in Oregon, there was no mention of the 5 month old girl in Cleveland, whose chest was blasted apart by a stray bullet or the security guard in Atlanta who was shot by his co-worker, or two brothers who were shot on a busy intersection in Fresno.
Actually, October 1 was a less-than-busy day for gun deaths.
This year, there has been more mass shootings than days on the calendar. According to Mass Shooting Tracker, America has experienced 294 mass shootings in 274 days. The most recent data from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention found that in 2013 an average of 92 people died in the United States each day of firearm-related injuries.
The day after the massacre at Umpqua, there were eight campus lockdowns. And that was just in Texas.
Lubbockites who delude themselves into thinking this only happens elsewhere must not be reading or watching the news. A drive-by shooting yesterday, a teenager the day before, a robbery, a home invasion, an interrupted burglary, ad nauseam. Thankfully, no one was shot when our own mayor drew a gun on a delivery driver.
With so many guns out there and so many who feel threatened, the absolute certainty of one’s personal safety is little more than a crap shoot, even if you never leave your home.
Right at this very moment, college officials in Texas are faced with the conundrum of maintaining the safety of their students versus following Texas’ misguided campus carry law.
It’s easy for politicians to offer their “thoughts and prayers” when the loss is not their own. They seem to be a quart-low on genuine empathy.
They won’t be the ones to suffer through family gatherings with that empty seat at the table. They will never wrestle with the absence of a father, mother, son, daughter, or friend and wonder how that life might have played out. Future birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays will be a painful regular reminder of loss and your thoughts and prayers are useless.
I don’t want to hear a litany of excuses for your lack of action.
Whether it’s on the left or right, I don’t care about your pretexts concerning the NRA lobby, lack of mental health treatment, gun registration, gun safety, gun shows, your fear of gun controls, bad guys with guns or imagined narratives about the heroes with guns, your fear of your own government, your hunting addiction, your survivalist fetish, or your ammo-sexual heritage.
None of these fictitious justifications matter in comparison to someone’s life. Your right to bear arms shouldn’t trump the rights of others to be alive.
Forget your damn thoughts and prayers. They are not enough. Your job is not about offering thoughts and prayers, it’s about finding solutions to problems, deadly problems, which affect your constituents.
That’s why you were elected.
No more excuses. Do something.
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Carol Morgan is a career/college counselor, a freelance writer, and former Democratic candidate for the Texas House. She is the award-winning author of two books: Of Tapestry, Time and Tears and Liberal in Lubbock. Email Carol at elizabethcmorgan@sbcglobal.net , follow her on Twitter and on Facebook or visit her writer’s blog at www.carolmorgan.org
http://lubbockonline.com/interact/blog-post/carol-morgan/2015-10-03/thoughts-and-prayers-are-useless-because-stuff-happens#.VhF8TCvziBZ
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