Y'all, I have to admit, I'm loving this trend of conservative politicians sharing their Christmas photos of their families — children included — with their guns. This week, Maury County Mayor Andy Ogles got in on the fun. I'm glad to see his family all showing proper safe-handling techniques, which is more than you can say for Kentucky congressman Thomas Massie's family, who took a portrait that makes it look like only three people in the photo have any actual familiarity with firearm basics. And everyone looks like they know they're having their picture taken and are happy to be there, unlike the photo of Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert's family.
We're living in an absurdist nightmare. Cause and effect have no meaning. Events have no relationship to each other. People claiming to be "for liberty" want to ban books. A politician claims to be "pro-life" while 17,000 of his constituents have died due to his policies. Parents help their kid acquire a gun, blow off the concerns of his school, and leave him in the building with that gun when the school has asked them to take him home and get him counseling, and he kills people in his school. A short time later, politicians share pictures of their children with guns they gave them. Amazon employees are working around the clock in giant warehouses in a place called "Tornado Alley." They are not allowed to carry their cellphones onto the warehouse floor, so they have no way of knowing that a tornado is barreling at them. The warehouses have no actual tornado shelters. Employees die. Amazon executives claim they are a "family." A man wakes up missing his nose. He discovers his nose is out in the world having a better life than him. His nose reappears on his face with no explanation. A different man attempts to save the world, and for his efforts his government kills him. Government agents celebrate that man's birth — in fact claim to be modeling their lives on his life — by waving around tools for killing.
Remember when Joe Biden was running for president and he said he was going to eliminate student loan debt? And now he's president and his administration is out here talking about how they're going to quickly transition people back into paying their student loans? And when you bring this up, politicos scoff as if it's ridiculous that you actually expected a politician to deliver on a plainly spoken promise? Or how, here we are, with a Democratic president and a Democratic majority in Congress and the answer for how to ensure we have voting rights or final say in whether we are pregnant is to vote for Democrats in the upcoming elections? We voted for Democrats already! But I guess there's no actual correlation between how I vote and what laws and policies I live under. Great system!
All you can do is laugh. Because this is a joke.
Back to the gun Christmas cards. Just think about this if it were any other tool. You open an envelope and pull out a card from your brother. It's him, his wife and their kids all holding chainsaws with Santa. Your friends are posing next to an inflatable manger scene, each is holding a spare tire. Your co-worker and her kids are standing in front of their Christmas tree holding leaf blowers.
Shoot, I have half a mind to send out Christmas cards with a picture of me and my dishwasher gazing at Christmas lights.
I would say that you can't have it both ways. Either a gun is just a tool like any other — in which case, what a weird thing for a Christmas card — or it's a powerful symbol that you're flashing to upset your political enemies. In which case, also a weird thing for a Christmas card.
But you clearly can have it both ways!
This is kind of depressing to think about, honestly, but I also find it a little freeing. I get very frustrated with the deep hypocrisy inherent in our system, where people claim to care about each other, but then act in so many ways that clearly show that they don't. One of my core beliefs has been that people should care about these dissonances — the distance between who they say they are and who their actions show them to be.
But they don't! And you know, that's actually good, actionable information to have. If I think it's important to try to live your values, even if you sometimes fall short, and if people are showing me that the values they profess aren't the values that they actually act on, well, now I know I should stay away from those people. Their way of moving through the world and my way of moving through the world are just too different to allow us to be in any kind of happy relationship with each other.
I honestly don’t know how else you live in an absurdist nightmare without having your soul crushed. You have to laugh at the funny shit, even if it’s also terrible. And when you find the people who are also laughing to keep from crying, make them your friends.
