It would be nice to live in a world where people played fair and approached things like an adult. I speak of what has happened since the Florida shooting. (The killing is too disgusting in its own right, and so many have done better than I ever will in capturing its horror.) The students of that high school have every right to demand change, to call BS on politicians, lobby their government, and march. To me, nothing could be more American. But, let’s be honest, the adults in the room aren’t doing their job, and they should be held to account for that.
What is disgusting to me is the reaction, or reactionary response from the far, and I mean far right, to the students. I have an uncle who is very extreme in his beliefs, and his reaction to the high school students is that if they are pro-choice, then they are not allowed to demand changes to gun laws. (Now brain hurts…) I think what my uncle is saying is that if you are for killing fetuses, then you have to be for killing high school kids. He cannot fathom a moral structure wherein the opposite is true. What hurts my brain more is that I don’t think he owns a gun, so I don’t know why he cares so much for protecting gun rights in the first place?
The other thing that is turning my stomach about the reaction to the high school students is the conspiracy theories that are flying around right now; False flags, paid actors, government operatives. Not everyone believes this, I get that, yet there are people out there that look at intelligent, focused, and driven kids as a pure impossibility. No way that high school kids could organize themselves… Never…
I don’t know if this effort will succeed. It may fail like all the others, but I will be at the NYC march, and I will encourage others to do the same. We have to have hope, and these high school students seem to be the only ones providing it.
