Like most of us, I mourn for the victims of the shooting in Aurora, Colorado. Life is a divine gift with the intention that the recipient enjoy it until natural death. I am greatly saddened by the thought that those killed last Friday morning had yet to fulfill the hopes, dreams, and expectations that are the substance of lives not yet fully lived.
This incident, along with so many others that preceded it, portends the demise of our nation, and I mourn for her as well.
Within hours of the tragedy, Internet articles and opinion pieces began circulating, suggesting government involvement with equipping and training this diabolical murderer as well as helping to plan his deadly attack. These claims insinuate that the government, in partnership with the biased national media, needed a tragic shooting incident that would create a public outcry against gun ownership in anticipation of Senate consideration of the UN Small Arms Treaty.
There has been much speculation as inconsistencies surfaced, such as the educational achievements of the shooter, the cost of the equipment and knowledge of its use, his calm surrender and warning to the police that his apartment was booby-trapped, and similarities to previous government stings in which would-be terrorists were captured before the raid could be carried out.None of us yet know whether the shooter will be proven to be an insane psychopath acting alone or part of a government conspiracy to promote the anti-gun agenda. Personally, I refuse to join in the speculation game.
It is, however, incredible to me that a significant number of Americans are willing to believe without hesitation that the federal government could be complicit in the murder of its citizens to promote a political agenda.
At what point did we first begin to doubt, then to impugn, the honesty and integrity of a government whose number one objective is to protect its citizenry? Perhaps one answer to this question comes with the realization that our government’s operating principle has become “The Ends Justify the Means”.
Departing so far from its constitutional and moral foundation, Washington (as well as many state and local governments) makes decisions based on political expediency, lust for power and personal gain. We are now suspicious of nearly every governmental decision and action, and any lapse in morality, even if totally inconceivable, has become conceivable.
How long can a representative republic survive when its government and its leaders have lost all credibility with the governed?
The foundation of America is a centuries-old moral code that pledges a respect for law and righteousness and denounces deceit and hypocrisy. As a nation, we have ignored the warnings of history by believing that we are somehow immune from the reality of its lessons.
The real question is how long can a rogue government that rejects the rule of law with impunity and ignores the Constitution survive the disdain and distrust of its citizens?
The last people on this Earth that I trust is “our” government. They can’t stay in or under budget. Currently this adminestration hasn’t even produced a budget. None of their programs work. The people that run the government are not accountable to it. I as a citiczen have to abide by the laws that they pass but they don’t, how does that work?