A Postmodern Children’s Crusade; or, Hogging the Narrative

It appears that every recent incident of mass shooting in the US ostensibly brings the country closer to that Isaiac eschatological moment where the Second Amendment will go the way of other insults to the Constitution enshrined in the document, analogous—however tenuously—to slavery and Prohibition.

The Parkland massacre could have been that moment.  The spectacle of teenagers in pain taking on the perceived “gun culture” and ostensible “Gun Lobby” might have served as an effective, and credible, opening salvo in the battle for moral high ground.

Then they immediately blew it. 

Not that they didn’t do it without help, or even initially willingly: the public appearance onstage with Sheriff Scott Israel proved right away that the outrage directed at the NRA was already selective, once his Broward County department was proven to have been malevolently incompetent on several levels regarding both departmental policy towards student criminality leading up to the massacre, and the Keystone Kops-like bungled response in real time.

Then, in executing the walkout—which in and of itself resembled more a scene from Rock n Roll High School, rather than On The Waterfront—the public association with certain forces and personages promoting the intersectionalitarian agenda further confirmed suspicions that this was now a postmodern Children’s Crusade that was either influenced by a not atypical teenage ADHD, or coopted by less-than-well-meaning “adults” with a whole different set of political interests.

Ryan Petty—father of a Parkland victim—further gave the lie to the notion that this postmodern Children’s Crusade was now driven less by a specific issue but more millennial social media protocol.  Petty instead proved how one could make a tangible and practical legislative difference by lobbying discreetly in Tallahassee for said changes, without necessarily having to publicly declare for a side in the culture wars first.

There is a Talmudic principle that states—loosely translated—“you gather too much, you gather nothing”.   No matter who is ultimately responsible for Hogging this narrative, it has been turned from a salient issue—how to prevent school shootings—into another cultural battle far beyond even Constitutional implications.  As a result, a ton of ground in the narrative battle has now been ceded back to the allies of the NRA who might ascribe to a loose analog of ostensibly right wing intersectional imperatives; specifically, the declared movement for disarmament now openly allies with terrorsplainers and others who have no problems with exempting SJWs and other revolutionists from disarming, thereby invalidating any further discussion of or reference to the Second Amendment irrespective of the debates around its history and proper application.

Finally, there have been complaints emerging from some quarters that criticizing these kids is unfair because, after all, they’re just kids.  No one should be subject to online threats and/or harassment regardless of age, but no one who engages thorny issues in a public forum and employs ad hominem attacks in said fora must prepare to get as good as they give, again regardless of age, and not complain about it.  Limits are appropriate; “blanket bans” are unsupportable.

Sort of like the Second Amendment.

There might be one life lesson that the high schools that encouraged these kids to walk out of haven’t taught them yet, one especially pertinent in the age of social media—and which might yet justify preserving some of public education resources threatened by Betsy DeVos’ DOE:

Don’t dish it out if you ain’t gonna do the dishes.