Reversal of Fortune

I don't usually like the whole imaginary change of realities as an excuse to write something but a couple of items in the news lately have compelled me to indulge in a moment of sick-fun fantasy.
Imagine a world where the Limbaugh-loving ultra-right wingers are opposed to private gun ownership. It could happen; think if the secular humanist liberals really didn't care about human life, as they are portrayed ad-nauseam  by Limbaugh and co., and they were taking aim with a 30.06 instead of a pen at all the hypocrisy of the Republican Party.  Might be those same Republicans would feel differently about AK-47's in the hands of Democratic "bird" hunters and start screaming on the airwaves about the need to limit the number and power of guns in the hands of outraged and sometimes, gasp!, misguided citizens. In no other way do I want to change reality; other than granting this brief moment of sanity regarding gun laws Mr. Limbaugh spews the same hateful garbage he does in real life.
Last week there were two, not merely one stupid awful tragedy but two, children who were killed when they fired a handgun in a car, one boy killed his sister and another boy killed himself. The mind boggles at how this could happen. The children were left alone long enough to get out of their car-seats and get a gun that they must have  known was there. The parents, leaving the children long enough to do all of this, didn't think to take the bullets out of the gun in order, I presume, to be ready to defend themselves from some external threat they must have felt was eminent. Now just think of the kind of comments a Rush Limbaugh would make about these events were he in favor of gun control, picture the gigantic red face and vituperative abuse he might pour forth! But now that I am at this point I am choking on the kind of hateful remarks that are Limbaugh's stock in trade. Though it might be nice to indulge in some smug self satisfaction about the idiocy of carrying loaded guns around that children can so easily access, I can only imagine the utter grief and guilt that must be overwhelming the parents of those children. Instead of working myself up into a frenzy of outrage at a policeman showing such a colossal lack of judgement and insisting on him facing criminal charges, not to mention losing his job, I see him standing with his son, the killer, at the grave of the little girl they both loved. What can the father say? That it isn't the boy's fault? Just an unfortunate accident? The lives of the survivors will be forever altered and not likely in any positive way. Instead of vilifying we ought to sympathize, instead of displaying hate I am gratified that the media is leaving those families alone to grieve in whatever peace they may find.
Hard to see Mr. Limbaugh approving of this passivity. Where is my gumption, he might say,  to take on an issue that I believe in so strongly? Am I just a yellow-bellied chicken for sitting quietly by while innocent children die because of stupid laws? Perhaps I am, perhaps it is the whole of civilizations' idea of mature behavior that is wrong when it attempts to see more than one side of an issue and then to behave with tact and humility.
I think it was T.S. Elliot who said "this is how the world will end, not with a bang but with a whimper", but it might very well end in a rant that everybody takes to be an intelligent argument. Most of the time I think Mr. Limbaugh is funny, a weathervane of the absurd. Mr Limbaugh is the cultural heir to Archie Bunker and in some ironic way he serves as a warning to progressives that the culture war will never be completely won. Alarms are supposed to sound obnoxious but if left on too long we stop paying attention. Mature people cannot afford to ignore the rants of Mr Limbaugh and his ilk, they warn us of the chaos that is always present and that we might slip into.