Real Men Crack Heads and Pack Heat

Why are Americans so violent? What can explain the Oklahoma City bomber, Timothy McVeigh or the Columbine high school rage killers Dylan Klebold or Eric Harris? What can explain a Jared Loughner? Is it just the wackos who vote with a gun? Hardly..

Now it seems in the post 9/11 era we have allowed ourselves to embrace "The Bush Doctrine," presidential hit lists, targeted assignation, drone strikes and torture.

And what can explain the American obsession with gun ownership?

Violence it seems, is the universal answer to all American problems.

Our violent heritage, the degree of violence American citizens have inflicted upon one another over it several hundred year history as a British colony and an independent nation might help explain it. Or does this propensity toward violent solutions run deeper in the American psyche than heritage might suggest?

In Mark Twain's semi-autobiographical book "Roughing It" tells of Twain's adventures as he traveled through the Wild West. In one part of his narrative claim explains that all men must be capable of using violent force to defend their opinions. Language alone -- mere words -- serves no real purpose unless it was supported by an implicit threat of violence. Twain wrote, "...they plainly had little respect for a man who would deliver offensive opinions of people and then be so simple as to come into their presence unprepared to 'back his judgment,’ as they pleasantly phrased the killing of any fellow being who did not like said opinions." Twain obviously had a fascination with the casual attitude men in the West had toward lethal violence, and although it is clear in Twain's books that he obviously didn't, approve of violence he seemed to admire the spirit of the wild West.

Americans still tend to think of themselves as heroic, rugged, self-reliant, freedom loving, individuals, who are ever willing to a stake a claim (or political position) and then defend it by violent rhetoric if not by force.

True men walk tall and never ask for permission. And only a pansy would defend an opinion with logic.

Such, it seems, is the nature of a proud American. And little wonder, therefore, that violence permeates all of American culture.

If we emerge now as a fascist police state no one should feel surprised by it. It's just who we are.

So, witnessing the violent police suppression of the OWS political protests shouldn't raise many an American eyebrow. What else could a bunch of American anarchists expect?