This Guy Wants to Be President

[Content Note: Guns; violence; anti-choicery.]

Republican Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has published quite the rant on his website about the UCC Shooting and who is to blame.

Under the title "We fill Our Culture with Garbage, and We Reap the Result," which is certainly a curious choice for someone running for president and hoping to "reap the result" of our culture-wide choice, he begins: "I'm going to start today by venting, and I will warn you in advance that this is going to be a sermon, but someone needs to speak the truth for a change."

You know when a conservative dude warns you that he's about to bravely engage in some truth-telling, you'd better buckle up and get ready for some hot trash.

Another week, another mass shooting, another press conference by the President lecturing us on the need for gun control, and now Hillary and Obama are in a race to see which of them can be the most extreme in trying to destroy the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Rinse and repeat.

But there is something missing from this discussion, and it's a glaring omission that everyone knows deep down, but politicians are afraid to talk about.

I'm going to go ahead and talk about it, and I don't care at all if some people don't like it, the truth is important.

What is the root cause of all these evil acts? These people who go into classrooms and churches and murder innocent people? How did we get to this place?

These shootings are a symptom of deep and serious cultural decay in our society.

Let that sink in for a minute.

Okay. Well, I don't need a minute to agree that mass shootings are a symptom of something fucked up in our society. I have the distinct feeling, however, that Governor Jindal and I don't agree on what, exactly, are the fucked up dynamics underwriting mass shootings. It would be pretty extraordinary if a conservative Republican made the case that unregulated gun access, toxic masculinity, white supremacy, and kyriarchal privilege were the hideous stew from which mass shooters emerged.

And, naturally, those are not the things to which Jindal is referring. He blames instead: Violence in pop culture, a disrespect for women and God in "our music," boys who play video video games, abortion, the breakdown of the family (a classic dogwhistle for same-sex marriage), and absentee fathers.

Then, very specifically and personally, he blames Christopher Harper-Mercer's father, who, as you may recall, argued for stricter gun laws.

Now, let's get really politically incorrect here and talk specifically about this horror in Oregon. This killer's father is now lecturing us on the need for gun control and he says he has no idea how or where his son got the guns.

Of course he doesn't know. You know why he doesn't know? Because he is not, and has never been in his son's life. He's a complete failure as a father, he should be embarrassed to even show his face in public. He's the problem here.

He brags that he has never held a gun in his life and that he had no idea that his son had any guns. Why didn't he know? Because he failed to raise his son. He should be ashamed of himself, and he owes us all an apology.

When he was asked what his relationship was with his son, he said he hadn't seen him in a while because he lived with his mother. Case Closed.

Case closed! Well, since Governor Jindal is so interested in the truth, here's a little of it: Lots of people have absentee fathers. Lots of people have fathers who are physically present but emotionally unavailable. Lots of people have fathers who died. Lots of people have two moms. All of those people don't become mass murderers. This is about as thoughtful (that is to say: not at all) as attributing mass shootings exclusively to mental illness, with zero acknowledgement of the fact that most of the people with mental illness don't pick up guns and shoot people.

And here's a little more truth: Harper-Mercer's mother was well into guns. Given the cultural propensity for (erroneously) blaming mothers for all their children's ills, it's pretty neat how suddenly a mother who was into guns and went to the shooting range with her son comes up for no share of the responsibility.

I'm not saying she necessarily should be; just that it's a telling omission from Jindal, who speaks THE TRUTH, except when it comes to addressing that access to and a fascination with actual guns might be more relevant than seeing guns in a video game or a movie.

Jindal concludes:

This mess is not nearly as complicated as we pretend.

It's the old computer axiom – garbage in, garbage out. We fill our culture with garbage, and we reap the result.

If anyone is at all serious about changing any of this, they must address the root problems, and those are cultural decay, the glorification of evil, the devaluation of human life, the breakdown of the family, and specifically the complete abdication of fathers.

Meanwhile, the shallow and simple minded liberals will continue to blame pieces of hardware for the problem, and they will long for the days before firearms were invented.

But the simple truth is, as long as we place no value on human life, as long as we glorify senseless violence and evil, we will get the exact same result.

Lots of blame to go around. Pop culture, lack of religion, abortion, gays, absentee fathers, liberals.

The one person who appears to bear no responsibility whatsoever in Jindal's thesis is Christopher Harper-Mercer.

The party of personal responsibility suddenly decides to take a look at the role culture plays in mass shootings when there is literally nothing else left to let them avoid talking about unregulated access to guns.

And in his determination to assign cultural blame on the other side of the aisle, Governor Jindal has failed entirely to mention that the man who did the shooting bears some responsibility for his actions.