Is Travelling to Totalitarian America Still Safe or Do I Need A Gun?

Do they sell them in airports yet?

America has become a war zone.

There is the police randomly killing its citizens, people storming the Capitol because of a narcissistic orange clown, the state policing women’s bodies, the streets full of the barely surviving homeless, the religious zealots, the riots, the erecting walls, the food laden with carcinogens, the constant shootings into crowds, and then the shootings, the shootings, and… the… shootings.

Police against the people, people against the police, people against people.

Everybody is at war with everybody else. Unbeknownst to its citizens, there is a war in America. And it doesn’t look like it’s going to end any time soon.

So the question in the title comes naturally. Is it still safe to travel to the US?

Despite all this turmoil, America is still a world of dreams. And when I first met it, it didn’t fail my expectations. Actually, it exceeded them tenfold.

It’s a glorious place with beautiful kindhearted people, oblivious to the situation they’re in, and brainwashed to believe that they’re the greatest country on earth.

Despite the guns, the unexpected and utter poverty, the drugs at every corner, and the brainwashing, nothing touches hearts like America.

They made heart touching into an art and crammed that art into Hollywood, meant to spit out more soul-touching mind-bending pieces of propaganda.

They’re known as movies.

They teach you that once you find the one you’ll be happily ever after.

They teach you that you can defeat 10 men with your bare hands.

And that America is the best country in the world.

They tell you what you need to hear. To put your mind at ease. Relaxed and compliant is better than angry and belligerent. They’ll take the latter out of the box when the time is right.

It’s dangerous what’s happening in America right now.

It’s dangerous for the whole world. Because America is very powerful. And just like one of those psychotic kids with a gun that terrorizes an entire school, it can and will do a lot of damage in the schoolyard.

Except that in this case the schoolyard is the whole world.

Look at Putin. He’s already doing it. Another extremist giant, frustrated that Ukraine doesn’t give him its toys. Soon, he’ll want everybody else’s toys. Actually, he already does.

But we wouldn’t travel to Ukraine, right?

And there’s one simple reason: because we’re afraid. We fear for our lives. We don’t want to come back home in a body bag or lie in a common grave somewhere.

We wouldn’t even travel to Russia!

Because we feel any state that aggressively polices its people into submission is not safe to travel to, even when bombs are not falling from the skies.

And while there are no bombs falling over America, I’m starting to wonder if it’s still safe to go there or if coming back alive is just a matter of luck.

Because a country that doesn’t allow abortions, but allows the police to brutally murder citizens for random reasons, like jogging, or stopping at a light, or being black, sounds more like Iran than like the greatest place on earth.

So should I buy a gun and a bulletproof jacket? Do they sell those in American airports? If they don’t yet, they’re probably already considering it.

There are only 2 reasons why America hasn’t taken the guns away from its citizens yet.

1. It can’t.

They’re too deeply ingrained in the culture and trying to do that will result in massive bloodshed.

2. It doesn’t want to.

A totalitarian government that knows what it’s doing will not actively seek to take guns from citizens that already have them.

These types of regimes prefer their supporters to possess firearms. After all, an armed populace ultimately provides more power and control for the state.

Since the population already has guns — a staggering amount of guns, some amassing to an entire military arsenal stored up in their anti-commie bunkers, the authorities will work with it rather than against it.

They will simply do what has been done before by other dictatorships: co-opt the people on their side. Of course, that can’t be done in a month or two. But it can be done in a few years of focused propaganda.

The Nazis have been talking about how bad the Jews were for 10 years before actually doing anything about it. They were building public support. And unfortunately, they did it well. The public adored Hitler and saw him as Germany’s great savior. Sound familiar?

When they eventually put their plan into action, the Nazis didn’t disarm the Germans. They disarmed the Jews.

Similarly, an American dictatorship will not try to take the guns away from its people, no matter how many have to die in the process.

They will indoctrinate people to use them for the greater good when the time comes. And the greater good will be whatever is on the dictator’s agenda.

Totalitarian regimes don’t use guns to instill submission. They use something much more powerful: words.

At least in the beginning.

To answer the question in the title: I’ll go. And I won’t even buy a gun. Because when everybody has guns, nobody has guns.

I’ll risk it. It’s worth it.

Because I want to see the country of my dreams at least one more time before, unable and unwilling to escape its tragic destiny, it crashes in on itself and goes out in a blaze of glory.

Just like it lived. And just like all great nations before it.