Oh hello Monday. Its nice to see you this time.

Hello faithful blog readers. Anything new? I know, I know, this unfortunately is probably a Monday we are all happy to see arrive.

As most of you are fully aware of the horrendous tragedy that took place this past Friday in Connecticut, what is the most ugly of these events is how our media exploits the situation.

We know nothing about the young man that committed these horrible crimes. We know nothing about the young mans family or upbringing. Yet the media is running wild with speculation as to means and motive. The media feeds the knee jerk reaction of every simple minded talking head to pontificate on personal opinion regarding the second amendment, further gun control, mental illness all the way down to what video games and tv the accused may have watched in his life. Of course the simpletons among us see the only solution to the problem is to eliminate all those listed things. Idiots.

Gun control does not fix this problem. Banning assault weapons does not eliminate school, movie theater, or mall shootings. Psychiatric hospitals and mental health doctors do not prevent these horrible things from happening. Purple magical unicorns and school prayers do not prevent these things from happening. Grandstanding moronic legislators promising new bills outlawing every single behavior or device prevent these horrible acts from occurring.

Understand this and repeat it a million times. Personal responsibility.

Personal responsibility comes in all shapes and sizes of life. From a mother with a mentally unstable kid living in her home deciding that while it may be lawful to own and collect an assortment of weapons, that its probably in her and the local populations best interest that she not have a fucking arsenal in her garage/basement. Thats personal responsibility.

Personal responsibility comes in the shape of a mother, father, brother, sister, family member, police, doctor, lawyer, judge, fireman, priest saying to someone, “look your sister, brother, son, daughter, is a fucking lunatic who needs mental health treatment”. It’s nothing to be ashamed of and no different then if you’re sick with the flu, cancer, or a broken leg. Until we let go of the stigma of mental health being a big no no talk and dirty little secret to ignore, then someone in the chain of life is failing at personal responsibility for that sick members condition and possible life experiences.

Personal responsibility comes in the forms of our school administrators and local elected government protecting our children. Before we bitch and moan about the teachers unions and their shitty pay, we need to know do we have any level of security? Is there the simplest form of a security plan about who the hell can walk into or get access into a full school of kindergarten children? How about a security plan or access control for a fucking kid armed to the teeth with assault rifles and pistols dressed in tactical or threatening clothing? Its not hard to spot these mass shooting perpetrators for god sake. Maybe we should lock a door. Maybe we should install a camera. Maybe we should pay at least someone to watch the locked fucking door or camera. Thats personal responsibility, whether its from a school principal, security guard, or Mr. Smith the science teacher.

Until we as a society start taking a look at ourselves for our problems instead of pointing blame at others, we will continue the downward spiral. We are each responsible for our own happiness and survival. No one is going to effectively legislate responsibility, happiness, safety, or morality. Only you the individual can do any of those things. What needs to be understood however is while there are those that refuse to take personal responsibility for their own lives and actions the simpletons whom we the lazy have elected to represent those that refuse to take personal responsibility, will only take away the freedoms from the few of us that try to live in a responsible way.

  • Drugs are bad. Take them away. How has that worked?
  • Alcohol is bad. Take it away. How has that worked?
  • Cigarettes are bad. Take them away. How has that worked?
  • Speeding in a car is bad. Take it away. How has that worked?
  • Guns are bad. Take them away. How has that worked?

Do you see a trend here? Look at the list of bad things that this nation and world has over time tried to legislate away because of the peoples lack of personal responsibility. Look at the consequences people historically have paid over time due to this legislation. When you don’t take responsibility for your actions, it doesn’t affect you. Eventually it only effects those that are responsible. The history books are full of prime examples of how people, citizens, countries, civilizations have failed for nothing more then lack of responsibility that more times then not can easily be traced back to an individual.

We’re all going to fail at something or things in life. It’s nature to fail. Without failure we don’t learn. Its when we fail that we don’t own the failure or blame someone else for the failure that the problem really takes root. Failure is a tough lesson in life to accept and take ownership of in this day and age. Its easy to dismiss or shift the blame of failure to others for the current state of affairs we find ourselves living in. I know I am no different. I have failed, I have shifted blame too. I can say and I guess I am fortunate that I have realized that in life, it hasn’t worked. I believe real freedom is when you accept your failures, learn and move on, trying not to fail in a similar way again. Sometimes the lessons are easy, sometimes hard.

I have soapboxed this subject enough so I’ll close with the following. Don’t allow the mainstream media to dictate to you how to feel. There are no hero’s in this so don’t look for any. Hollywood movie stars and entertainers having nothing of significance to say about this and if they claim they do then you should know immediately they’re full of shit and don’t truly care. There was and still is lots of failure of personal responsibility that led to and allowed this to happen. It wasn’t a singular item. Not a gun, an unlocked door, or a mother in denial of her mentally broken son. A lot of people passed the buck and didn’t accept responsibility that lead up to these events. This will happen again. No amount of new laws will prevent bad things from happening. Be responsible, and be ready for bad things to happen in a way that makes you comfortable. Not what some idiot on TV or the Internet tells you. This blog included.

 

When tragedy befalls you, don’t let it drag you down

Love can cure your problems,
You’re so lucky I am around. 

I havent been fortunate enough to have any children of my own yet so the closest comparison I can relate to are my dogs. They have been as much my children to me as a kid is to a parent I venture to guess. Its with that understanding I relate this story.

Recently I got news of an old friend of mine whom tragedy of the worst kind has befallen. The hows and whys are not important but I’ll tell you when I say the worst kind, yea worst kind. A parent having to burry a child. Even though in this case it was a step child, but knowing this person it hardly would have mattered to her. This person was always an open hearted type woman that seemed to like or at least give everyone a fair chance so biological or step child probably had no real distinction to her anyway.

When I heard the news, of course you go through the emotions of loss and heartache for that person. I couldn’t help but think about my Golden Retriever, Lucille whom I lost this summer to cancer/tumor at only four and a half years old.

I can’t remember my parents or brothers birthdays without looking it up somewhere. I cant remember anniversaries, valentines day (any wonder I dont have kids?). I know my own birthday and the Marine Corps birthday. I also know June 11, 2012.

On June 11th of this year, after dropping my sick dog off to a veterinarian for emergency surgery I got “That” call.

Mr. Kingston we got her on the table and opened her up and it was bad. I worked as fast as I could to fix her up, the mass on her spleen was large. I got it all out, but due to the blood loss and anemia her heart was going a million miles an hour. She arrested just as I was finishing up. We got some meds into her and I got her heart re-started once. Five minutes later she arrested again and nothing I could do would get her going again. I’m so sorry.

That was it. That was all I had left of Lucille. I think I held it together long enough to thank the doctor for trying and hung up the phone. I ah, yea, I collapsed after that and the rest of the day is gone from my memory.

Parenthetically sure Lucille was my “child”. What the hell was I going to do now? I know those deep horrible feelings of loss. I felt horrible for my friend Gabrielle. This wasn’t a pet for her, this was a child. If I felt that way over a dog, a pet, how can you quantify that when its another person? Its not so hard for me. My pets have always been my kids. Maybe if I have a kid one day I’ll see the difference, but I somehow doubt it. So in a way, I know where my friend Gabrielle and her family is right, now. It’s shit.

But I also know something else. Something else I am certain Gabrielle will later get to feel too.

You see after an amount of time, that only you know the amount of, “love” comes back through your door. Love from your family, friends, your pets you lost, and the people you may have lost. That love and time, fixes everything and shines the light of perspective back into your life. All you have to do is let it in.

I volunteer a few hours a week at an animal shelter for an obligation for me and for Lucille. I rescued a dog from that shelter that I connected with. This is how the love I had for Lucille has manifested itself back into my life. The work is sometimes gross and a pain, but I come home and see Lucas jump on a particular couch and look out the window, just like a certain Golden Retriever did her entire life and I know what I am doing and the path I am on is the right one. That is my love.

I have cursed god, cursed doctors, cursed luck, cursed myself, cursed everything over the loss of Lucille. I needed to curse all those things. I needed the time to curse all those things. Now, I am done.

I got plenty of love back in my life and thats good enough. When i see Lucille and Jasper again with Lucas and whatever other four legged children I may have in my life, I’ll be a bigger baller that that bastard Cesar Millan, and I wont be whispering shit with my pack. We’ll be running and swimming with War Pigs turned up to fucking 11.

Gabrielle, If you read this, I miss you and I love you. Be strong and you got this!