deutsche welle, reporting on the "shock that washed over the netherlands" yesterday after the mall shooting in a small town, registered the usual sentiments:
"Alphen aan den Rijn will never be the same," said one of more than 5,000 messages on an electronic condolence register opened in the town of around 72,000 inhabitants.
"Why? We are incredulous and shocked," said another. "The Netherlands lost its innocence."
Another resident, Martin van der Ploeg, told news agency Reuters that the shooting was "something you usually see in America, not in the Netherlands."
that last one is, of course, quite similar to reported reaction to the brazil school shooting last week as well -- something that we reported here in the aftermath.
what is it about this shining city on a hill, and beacon to the world of freedom and prosperity, that has so degenerated into a free-for-all of murder and mayhem -- that now a mass murder anywhere in the world seems distinctly "american"?
it's an article of faith around these parts -- seen prominently at tea party gatherings -- that "guns save lives." there is from time to time yet another call to make carrying firearms mandatory -- on the theory that events like those in the netherlands and brazil could be prevented by pistol-packing mamas and beer-drinking, unemployed glenn beck fans.
fact is, while the US slides towards social, financial and political chaos, its #1 export continues to be its increasingly warped and pathological culture -- finding a receptive audience with all those broken and malfunction people around the globe transfixed by americans' unholy knack for rash and irrational "solutions" to whatever ails 'em.
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