Tea Party

Since I arrived, the single most practiced activity of mine has been watching TV. To tell you the truth, this may well be the best way to get to know America, as my hanging out in the hotel lobby does not look like it would amount to much.

First, I naively hoped that by watching CNN I could get some sort of news on Europe and ME. Haha... As a result, I have learned all about the "NEWS" in US. The main thing remaining from my previous days is a homeless radio speaker recovered and reunited with his mother. Now yesterday evening's events have totally erased all else. A congress woman (i am still not clear what that means but but but) has been shot in Arizona. It seems the guy was simply crazy and just shot without too much aim or thinking over the consequences.

5 people I think died. 3 over 60. And a 9 year old girl. And the congress woman got a head injury and is still in critical condition.

Some discussions are there from what I understand about whether this was a result of her being explicitly targeted by the Tea Party movement a year ago or so. I started to wonder what this Tea Party movement is. And thank you wiki for enlightening us:

"Various polls have also probed Tea Party supporters for their views on a variety of political and controversial issues. A University of Washington poll of 1,695 registered voters in the State of Washington reported that 73% of Tea Party supporters disapprove of Obama's policy of engaging with Muslim countries, 88% approve of the controversial immigration law recently enacted in Arizona, 82% do not believe that gay and lesbian couples should have the legal right to marry, and that about 52% believed that "lesbians and gays have too much political power.""

There is something seriously wrong about the US. I can to a certain extent understand Europeans, Germans, Swedes, Italian, Turkish, Russian. But the Americans? Where else do people should a bunch of others without any reason almost every month? There are 80 million people with registered guns in the US. I read this statement in Seattle times today and it said 80 million people, not 80 million guns. Either way... A 10 year old boy shot his mother somewhere rural using a RIFLE that resided in his BEDROOM! This was the news from the paper. It said before 12-13, children do not have a whole understanding of the consequences of their actions. Therefore, they are more likely to act impulsively.

Seriously there is something wrong with the US. I find it still hard to press my finger on it. But I will one day.

Now perhaps the whole problem lies here: Now this 10 year old had rifles in his bedroom, because apparently it is custom to hunt as a teenage wherever he was and there is no min. age for obtaining a hunting license either (just beautiful). Some argue that these are all fine but the parents have not done their job of parenting, thus providing all access to guns and enabled the incident. Now others like us (Europeans, non-US humans?) would say, ban the guns, keep the guns locked up AND make sure kids are AFRAID of guns like they come from Elm street hell. DO whatever you can so more people do not die, we would say. WHATEVER.

I come from Turkey, where people constantly get shot at weddings when people are shooting a few hands to the air for celebration. But I am yet to hear a case in Turkey where a person just would shoot anyone in the vicinity. OK, our police has done this a good many times. Ok, there may be like 2-3 incidents that I do not remember. And people like hurting each other in my country where 60% beat up their wives. But for god's sakes. We are most definitely more sane. Most definitely.