Dear Lauren,

My Psych' Prof once said:

'One out of Ten people. That's the projected ratio of psychopaths to 'normal' people'.

He continued, "And the percentage increases in the so-called business world. "

Great.

Found these behaviours on the net, spot any in a former 'Business-Man-turned-President' ?

*behaviour that conflicts with social norms.

*disregarding or violating the rights of others.

*inability to distinguish between right and wrong.

*difficulty with showing remorse or empathy.

*tendency to lie often.

*manipulating and hurting others.

*recurring problems with the law

*grandiosity

But, this is not something new.

Back to the main.

So, Missouri has one of the most permissive gun laws in the USA.

RIFLES & SHOTGUNS - HANDGUNS

Permit to Purchase No No

Registration of Firearms No No

Licensing of Owners No No

Permit to Carry No No

This senseless adherence to the 2nd Amendment, ignoring not only the collateral damage to 99% of its citizenry but also ignoring the dangers of arming the psychopaths, must also have something to do with not only business but also mythology.

So, what parts of American mythology cause you and many many others, you are not alone, Lauren, to not want to get off the couch and run out into the streets shouting, "This is madness!"

After all, a mythology helps explain the tribe's raison d'etre, why its people are here, helps explain the mysteries of creation if not makes the suffering of the 'slings and arrows of outrageous fortune' somehow more bearable.

A mythology also reaffirms a sense of belonging to something bigger than oneself.

But, what if the mythology no longer embraces but rather alienates its people and generates a sense of belonging to one's violent impulses?

That's when a mythology, rather than offering a sense of nurture, begins to infect the opposite...with a staggering tribal malevolence which borders on the more primitive psychopathic nature of our species.

Unfortunately, this means that the manifestations of the hero must likewise be infected.

And so it has on both sides of the 49th Parallel.

Canadian heroes used to be socio-centric. Their stories were never about 'me...me...me'. Their selfless actions made the whole better. As one famous playwright wrote, 'You're a typical Canadian, you're modesty itself. "

For the most part one of our greatest 20th Century heroes is Terry Fox, a one-legged cancer survivor running across Canada to raise funds for Cancer research.

US heroes?

The psychopaths's vainglorious actions are often praised, especially in movies and other myth-making mediums.

Indeed, some actions are so glorified that one can be vaulted to the White House.

The most insidious credo, one which has culturally flooded Canada?

"If you don't get what you want, you have a good old shoot 'em up. It's my God-given right."

John Wick anyone?

Or in 2022, drive a revamped Mountie Police car through Nova Scotia, with US smuggled guns. and kill 22 people.

So Lauren. America's exceptionalism, its drive to violently colonize Central and South America or Vietnam, or bomb a brown-skinned people for the oil under their feet, and enable genocidal madness in Gaza and the West Bank, has inculcated a psychopathic mythology which has trickled, hell no cascaded, down to the simple gun-toting adolescent-minded, who enact the same on their neighbours, or their neighbour's children.

Columbine, Sandy Hook or Uvalde is not enough?

That it should continue unabated is sheer madness.