The Life of a Creative, Part 3 (Ultimate Freedom)

In 1964, when Rita Schwerner and Andy Goodman's parents went to see LBJ after their loved ones went missing in Mississippi, the President knew he was in a for a tough time, and he was right. Rita was confrontational: "This is not a social call, Mr. President. You need to help find my husband." But despite having few answers, LBJ at least acknowledged their pain and met them where they were....

Dozens of parents lost their first-graders in one of the worst acts of violence this country has seen since the 1927 school bombing in Bath, MI, and most of our elected politicos treat them as if they're kooks and loose cannons, unworthy of a meeting. (Bereaved Isla Vista dad Richard Martinez has been called a "media whore"). Today on talk radio an old geezer angrily referred to the Sandy Hook parents as "snakes" for trying to "weaken gun rights." 

But what do you expect these parents to do? Losing a child is brutal enough. Losing a child to a preventable act of violence is bound to turn a parent into an activist. You don't take it lying down; you make it your life's mission to prevent other similar losses. And where is the compassion that Americans are so famous for? Sandy Hook parents will feel a sharp, fresh grief every day of their lives. In defending gun rights, we've taken to denigrating these bereaved parents. So is it all about The Gun now?

A gun is not this country's ultimate symbol of freedom — if it is, then we're in a very sorry condition. Even the most deprived concentration camp inmates knew, the one thing that can't ever be taken from you is your ability to think, to choose your thoughts and reactions. The one thing that can't be taken from us is freedom of thought, the ability to attain an education, shape opinion and policy, participate in public discourse, to form ideas apart from the herd. Or to disagree — and still enact compassion. 

(Photo above: On April 11, 1968, President Lyndon Johnson signed a bill that made it a crime to interfere with civil rights workers and to cross state lines to incite a riot.)