94
The paradox of the American gun culture is that it is undermining the
very values it was meant
to protect. Do you remember Franklin Roosevelt's famous "Four Freedoms"? These were what
America ostensibly fought World War II over. One of them was "freedom from fear." That
battle has been lost. Even outside
main cities, the US is now a land of
real freedom only during
daylight. We have reached a point in recent years where people believe
they have to constantly
peer over their shoulders as if being pursued by the KGB. This routine
fear is now so much part
of life in the US that Americans have begun to take it for granted. We
instinctively avoid large
sections of cities, using mental maps in our maps in our heads that are unavailable to tourists.
Last year I was in Japan. It is a worse place to live than the US in many respects. But it is
possible to walk in a park in Tokyo at midnight fearlessly just as it was in America
as recently
as the 1950s. This freedom felt strange to me, as if a state of fear
about physical safety is
normal. And it is. Barricading oneself at home
all night is now natural; wandering around freely
and alone - once the quintessential American experience - is now foolhardy.
1. What has been lost is...................
a) The arms that Americans possessed to fight in World War II.
Dostları ilə paylaş: