Time to holster the deadly Wild West fetish
Whenever the pessimist in me thinks that peace has broken out and a modicum of common sense might prevail, I am always reminded that the lunatics are still trying to take over the asylum; that negative preternaturalism is alive and well.
Lo and behold, here it comes in the form of the oafish Michael “pistol-packin” Weldon, our very own post-modern rootin’, tootin’, six-gun Dusty Fogg – anti-hero of George G Gilman’s pulp Westerns from a bygone era. Weldon perhaps harbours an absurd fantasy that he is the Wilcoxian “new sheriff in town”.
From the honeycombed insides of his head that echo with “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do”, he imagines a world where there is no durable law, only that of gunmetal and lead pulverising adolescent bone shards at 1,400 feet per second. A dystopian planet where people like him are so terrified of their own shadow, they fetishise their phallic firearms as an ersatz substitute for rational thought and true masculinity.
Weldon, in his frontier imagination, actually thinks – if that be the word – that packing the instruments of extreme violence provides a panacea, a cure-all for those who advocate decency, intelligence and basic humanity. Like those wonderful kids of Marjory Stoneman Douglas, whom Weldon would brand “leftist loons”, for daring to speak out against the kind of insanity that Weldon wears as a badge of warped pride.
Obscenity comes in many forms, but few as blatant as that found in a holster, or hiding behind a cheap NRA slogan. Shame on you, Weldon. Get some therapy.
Dr Frank
Bangkok
