The real America
Tomorrow, according to a calendar hacked out of stone thousands of years ago, we enter a new age. Let me close this one by saying something that I need to get out, and then perhaps I can move on.
America had its Dunblane last week. Knowing that Newtown is only a couple of hours away from where I live rather than far away where I've never been makes it seem all the more frightening... the tragedy doesn't bear thinking about. And in its aftermath, this and the shooting in Colorado only a couple of months ago have brought to the surface a very uncomfortable part of American society.
The attitude to guns is one of the most stark contrasts between America and the life I used to know - virtually unheard of in Britain, the right to own them written into the law of the country here. It is unbelievable to me that people are treating the events of last Friday as a necessary evil in society that comes from the right of everyone to own these weapons, rather than something that must be acted upon and ensured is never repeated. The argument against increasing gun control is that when the next massacre happens, some bystander will be able to pull out their own gun and end it instantly - indeed, there are so many voices now actively encouraging people to arm themselves. And when I think about it, I don't know how to argue with this - it appears to be perfectly logical - but the idea of owning one is unthinkable to me, and I've never felt threatened. Perhaps I see it as a gesture of confidence in my own safety without taking part in an arms race.
I can't lie - guns scare me. And I feel that this is the correct attitude, being weapons that can propel metal very fast over a great distance. Indeed, I've known people who keep and handle them responsibly - and I want everything possible done to make sure that they only stay in the hands of people like them. But even saying that is me making a compromise to American society - after Dunblane, restrictions on the ownership of handguns were tightened to the point of making them completely illegal, and I've heard no word on why, while these laws work well enough in Australia, in Britain and in so many other first-world countries, they would instantly dissolve America into a lawless Wild West. What a hideous culture these people must live in, that the only way to ensure your own safety is to trust nobody and to own a bigger gun than those around you.
The other avenue to take from this is to improve the quality and availability of mental health services - another thing that we've seen attempted and actively opposed over the last few years. Can you imagine living in a world where every step towards becoming more like the society you used to live in is treated with such utter revulsion? The greatest problems with America can be summed up in its ignorant pride - it believes that it must by definition be the best at everything. A friend of a friend mentioned he'd stopped reading what I write this year because of its "anti-American content" - to these people, any suggestion that something isn't right is treated as dissent, and it's because of them that America is so much less than what it could be.
The reason that I feel so suffocated by all of this despite living in such a liberal part of the country is that American patriotism has been hijacked by extreme conservatives, making this invulnerable ignorance appear to be the baseline of American values - and it's impossible to shut it out. There is a fad that I saw starting in 2008, strengthening during the effort to improve health care, and that has been making a resurgence over the last few days - that of judging someone on whether they are a "real American", with these opinions and values, settling for what America is and not what it could be, not caring what the rest of the world thinks about it - if you don't share their views, then you're a fake, defective, wrong.
Well, I am not a real American. And according to the criteria of these people, none of my friends who live here would be either, despite having as much right to the term as anyone could possibly have. But if, in this country that is meant to have and accept such diversity, being a "real American" is to be as loud, closed-minded, stubborn and backward as these people are... then not being a real American is the greatest compliment that I could hope for anyone.