People look at the past, and long for the good-ol’ days. We romanticize what used to be, focusing on only the good, and forgetting how much was bad, or even worse than bad. We look at our present, and we focus on the bad, and what we want to change, then dream of a future that is only good, not imagining the negative consequences of what we’re doing today. We say, “Things weren’t like this back in my day,” but odds are, they were. People don’t have less of a respect for life today – mass shootings, and the brutality we see every day isn’t a function merely of a change of attitude toward what life is worth. Were we as a species really respecting, and valuing life when we were burning witches for baseless religious accusations? How about when indigenous peoples were being slaughtered? Gladiator tournaments? Hangings? Beheadings? Crucifixions? Monarchs ordering executions on a whim? Do these all show how we respected life? Are the 2A gun nuts really showing a respect for life by fighting harder for their right to own military grade weapons than seeking to find solutions that would stem the tides of gun related deaths we have in our nation?
