If Any Of This Was About Protecting Children...

 

Hi.

This week, I don't even know where to begin.

The absolutely spectacular hypocrisy exuding from our neighbours to the South is breathtaking in all of the worst possible ways. 

The right-wing politicians and their deluded followers love to weaponize Christianity to fit whatever narrative suits them at the moment. 

Abortion- they want to claim that life begins at conception. If that is your belief, then child support should begin then as well. Pregnant women should not be allowed to be sent to prison, as the baby can not be punished for the sins of the mother. A mother on assistance should receive more the minute a pregnancy test is positive. 

The idea of stripping women of autonomy of their own bodies is ridiculous. To do so under the guise that it is, in some way, an act of noble protection of children, is just an outright lie.

If any of it were really about protecting children, it wouldn't simply stop at abortion. If your belief is that life begins at conception and, that the protection of children should come before the rights of the individual, then protecting that life shouldn't end once the child is born.

If any of it were really about protecting children, your healthcare system would reflect that. If you take your blinders off and look at the world, at large, you will see just how broken your system is. People should not have to mortgage their house to get cancer treatment for their children. They shouldn't have to sacrifice basic needs to cover prescriptions. No one should have to worry about whether or not they can "afford" for their child to become ill. That's insane. 

If any of it were really about protecting children, your gun laws would reflect that. Your individual "right" to bear arms should not be held as more important than the lives of the children you scream at the top of your lungs, a vow, to protect. In your country, your children die of gun violence more than any other manner of death. How is it that you, in the same breath, vow protection, and refuse to give it?

If any of it were really about protecting children, fingers that are deemed too young to wrap themselves around a glass of beer, would also be deemed too young to wrap around the trigger of an assault weapon.

If any of it were really about protecting children.

It's not. 

It's about power.

Having it to lord over others, particularly women. 

Keeping it by genuflecting at the altar of the almighty gun worshippers. Willing to sacrifice your babies to appease them.  

Twisting it to reflect an imaginary, completely ridiculous idea that most Americans are against gun legislation. That's bullshit. It just is. 

This gun obsession is unique to the United States. It happens nowhere else... not like this. 

The United States has had 22 school shooting incidents this year. That's not even six months. Twenty-two times your children have had to live through a trauma usually reserved for those who suffer through wars. You are voluntarily putting your children through active shooter drills. You are sending them to school every day knowing that today could be the day someone walks in, and kills, at least, some of them. 

Your children have more in common with the children of Ukraine, living through Putin's horror, than they do with kids from most other countries, like Canada. 

The death grip with which you hold on to your guns is snuffing the light and life out of your children.

Let it go. 

Thoughts and prayers are meaningless, if not followed by action. 

Our children, the world's children, are already living through a time of historic uncertainty. Why add to it?

To make ends meet, people, including parents, are having to work two, three, or more jobs. People are sleep-deprived, and stressed, every minute and penny needing to be accounted for. 

They have spent two of their formative years living through a pandemic, and all that that entailed. The confusion, the changes, the anger, the divisiveness, the fear.

They are dealing with reconfiguring their lives, resocialization, and finding their feet, all under the guidance of these same, stressed, sleep-deprived, time-stretched, adults. 

How do the kids not fall through these societal cracks that are now big enough to devour them at will? 

So, neighbour, here I sit, in my imperfect, flawed home country of Canada, watching you, yet again, clutch your pearls as you witness your latest, completely preventable tragedy. I'm not alone. The whole world watches you balance your lies, juggle your hypocrisy, and bathe in your trigger-happy obsession.

Do you feel judged?

You should. Because you are.

You are a country willing to sit and watch your babies die from the bullets empowered by your elected officials.

Save your thoughts and prayers. If you were really horrified by these massacres, you would DO something. 

If any of this was really about protecting children...

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For the families...

May you, someday, once again, be able to close your eyes and smile at their memory.

May you find the strength to breathe, to walk, to love, to function, albeit in reverie.

May this be the end, the last one, with no more masses, no more babies to fall.

May this be the last time, anyone, any family, any parent, gets this horrific call.

May this be the last time. Please, make this the last time.