It gives me some catharsis after a mass shooting to comment about such news to note that us killing each other, including very often our children is exactly who we are and what others should judge us as, because we refuse to work to change it, and we deserve to be judged accordingly on such acts by both the world and history, as if history generally got written by the virtuous.

It doesn’t change what happens, or help the situation, but it helps me to at least basically say as insultingly as possible to my society, “This is the part where we should be deeply ashamed of who we are, and strongly desire to change who we are .”

Unfortunately, on so many levels, from social to economic policies and values, the United States seems to have completely divorced itself from the concept of shame, except sadly for the one place it has no value whatsoever, where we seem to concentrate literally all the shame we are capable of: backwards, puritanical sexual hangups.

Somehow we remember shame for that harmful, idiotic exercise exclusively. None for greed, none sociopathy, none for selfishness, none for glorifying owning tools of murder as somehow synonymous with personal freedom, etc. None for people who hurt others to benefit themselves exclusively, we encourage that kind of shameless “rational self-interest.” We put the best of those sociopaths on Forbes lists and call them role models.

“👏Oh they made so much money for themselves and their private shareholders! So fucking brave! They should be so proud! 👏”