PostHeaderIcon How Can They Kill Me? Let Me Count The Ways

The Austin area having been my past home for many years – and the current home of a daughter, son-in-law and two grandsons, one can easily understand my interest in the recent bombings there.

My first observation is that this moron of a perpetrator was home-schooled and raised to be a religious fanatic. Why then is anyone surprised when he behaves like a typical religious fanatic?

Note further than no single religious movement has a monopoly on fanaticism – all of them are subject to it. I guess it just comes with the territory – you learn to believe the impossible then suddenly everything SEEMS possible, however perverted it really is.

My second observation is that the moron did illustrate a very good point, assuming anyone in power was paying attention. That point is that gun control is a joke and has always been a joke. What do the powers that be propose now? Shut down Home Depot and outlaw the sale of nails? At what point does the nonsense in this approach shine through?

I have a better idea. How about we fix our school system so that it actually teaches things worth knowing – like, how to coexist in a peaceful world and how to process information such that they are much less likely to be taken in by fanaticism. Then, how about we return to that obsolete notion of holding people responsible for their own actions, starting when they are small children.

My final observation is that we should all grow up a bit. It is a known fact that freedom is NOT free. Indeed, it has many costs and one of those is that a few people will misuse their freedom to do harm to others. Yes, we can punish them after the fact if we so choose but there is little we can do before the fact (or before the act if you prefer). Trending toward a police state is simply not a valid answer – although, those who are greedy for power will try to convince the rest of us that it is.

Honestly, do fewer people get harmed in a police state? Or it is just the source of the harm that is different? (Deranged dictators rather than deranged citizens.)

We tolerate tens of thousands of dead an maimed each year in order to have the freedom to drive our own vehicles. We sacrifice who knows how many to the great god known as junk food. We lose who knows how many for the privilege of altering our minds with alcohol, nicotine and other drugs. Why then do we get so excited when the source of harm goes BOOM as we are killed?

Grow up America.

Troy L Robinson

5 Responses to “How Can They Kill Me? Let Me Count The Ways”

  • The insidious power of words… we; us; our… they; them; their… When reading commentary such as this, I find I must be vigilant not to get sucked in by the generous use of collective pronouns. Acknowledging that most Americans live in the ‘us vs. them’ dichotomy, I again protest that I do not. Thus, I am not a member of your collective, Troy… or theirs.

    With that caveat established, I must confess that this post gave me a mild case of whiplash over the education issue, which likely caused me to over think it. First, I am glad your family is safe, and concur with your remarks regarding gun control. I have often said that as long as angry young men are able to freely procure gasoline and beer bottles, the potential for serious mayhem is unpreventable.

    Why then is anyone surprised when he behaves like a typical religious fanatic?

    Typical? As a committed freethinker, I share your disdain of all dogmatic fundamentalists, religious or otherwise. However, I have yet to encounter any reporting regarding his actual motive for these bombings. How have you made the leap, to conclude that his religious proclivities were causal? I think it’s fair to say that well over 99% of Christian fundamentalists never go about bombing for Jesus, no matter how fanatical. Even if we discover that he did, wouldn’t that make him atypical?

    A casual reader might conclude that you blame homeschooling for his psychosis, especially since your incongruent solution is to rearrange and tighten the curriculum, of so-called public schools. If he didn’t attend one of these government indoctrination factories, how could that have helped? Are you advocating making homeschooling illegal, perhaps because you have conflated it with religious fanaticism in your mind?

    Although the antithesis of a religious fanatic, I have been a strong advocate of homeschooling for over 20 years. When I was managing my Montessori school, I implored parents to do whatever it took to homeschool their children, after they graduated from my program at the age of five, rather than allowing their presently flourishing minds to be deliberately retarded. I would unabashedly condemn sending a child to public school, as a particularly egregious form of child abuse. I would tell them that if I was a young man interested in starting a family, I wouldn’t even consider marrying a woman who would not agree to put her career goals on hold, long enough to be a stay-at-home mom and homeschool our children.

    The empirical evidence is overwhelming that homeschooling generally produces superior results. Any resultant aberrant or antisocial behaviors would likely be a function of the mysticism their parents chose to indoctrinate them with, well before the homeschooling process itself ever began. Even then, I reckon they would grow up to be better neighbors than most of the helpless snowflake SJW fanatics, now being churned out of public schools. â—„Daveâ–º

  • Troy says:

    Dave, I realize that much of your pushback comes from the fact that you simply enjoy arguing with me. I’m OK with that.

    However, my friend, neither you nor I are islands in this growing sea of humanity. There are over 300 million just in our Republic and neither of us can avoid affecting and being affected by others. IMHO, we either learn to live peacefully with each other or we all suffer.

    As for the homeschooling issue, we are not on the same page. There are two primary reasons for homeschooling — the good reason is to ensure one’s offspring get a good education, something that is increasingly hard in today’s “education system”.

    The bad reason, and one that I have first-hand experience with, is to keep your kids from rubbing shoulders (and exchanging ideas) with people who “are not like us”. Some years ago, I had next door neighbors who fit into the latter group. They were religious nuts who did not dare let any of their six children associate with… the rest of us. What they actually turned out was a pack of maladjusted little monsters, one of whom would come to our house for sanctuary (when his mother was at work) so that his siblings did not beat him up. Sadly, I have known of many other similar examples. And, you are absolutely correct, it was the attitude of the parents and not the homeschooling that did the damage.

    The reason I mentioned homeschooling in my original rant was based on my assumption that the Austin bomber came from the second type of my two examples. I suspect that this form of homeschooling is much more prevalent in the bible-belt south than in your neck of the woods.

    You are also correct in that there is, of yet, no evidence that the bomber’s belief system had anything to do with his actions. I counter — how could they not have? As I have said before, there is nothing on this earth more dangerous than a person deluded into thinking that (s)he is doing god’s bidding.

    Troy

    • Thanks for indulging my sport, Troy. I thoroughly enjoy debating anyone, who will engage enthusiastically and civilly. While I sometimes perceive the need to pull my punches and/or back off, in deference to your sensibilities or mood, you are generally the epitome of a worthy opponent, my friend. And, when exploring my contrarian nature, never forget the extreme ‘mismatching filter‘ perpetually installed in my mind, which is simply incapable of not noticing (and gleefully illuminating) hidden flaws in any argument. 🙂

      I may not be an island in your vast sea of collective humanity; but as I slide into my dotage, I find it much less frustrating to peaceably inhabit a small local puddle, as a sovereign individual. That way, I need not concern myself very much with the increasingly unsolvable chaos, engendered by futile efforts to coral and coercively govern massive herds of sheeple.

      No, we are not on the same page. When the subject of homeschooling arises, my mental filters assign the concept overwhelmingly positive connotations, which easily outweigh any failings or questionable motives of some parents. As you say, your personal experience generally causes your mental filters to do the opposite, even though you freely admit that it is not the homeschooling process itself that creates “packs of maladjusted little monsters.”

      That said, I must admit that my support for homeschooling, goes well beyond academics. I am less concerned with what public schools fail to teach, as the Progressive nonsense they do. Then, one need not be a Christian fundamentalist, to desire to insulate one’s children from the pernicious nature of peer pressure in this ever increasingly dysfunctional society. Is it really that hard to understand their desire to protect their children? It strikes me as perfectly natural and rather laudable.

      …there is nothing on this earth more dangerous than a person deluded into thinking that (s)he is doing god’s bidding.

      Is this hyperbole, or do you actually believe it? I can think of all manner of wild beasts and secular psychopaths, which are potentially more dangerous than even the most fanatic suicidal Jihadi, much less a Christian fundie. How about MS13, or the Mexican drug cartels, for contemporary examples? Whether or not the Austin bomber thought he was doing it for Jesus, his short reign of terror pales in comparison to such savages.

      Meanwhile, I have personally known many devout fundies, who reckoned they were doing their god’s bidding by feeding the homeless, and similar acts of charity. Haven’t you? â—„Daveâ–º

  • Interesting exchange as always you 2 😉

  • Chris says:

    Reminds me of a meme I have seen on Facebook. Yea, I know but every once in a while a pearl can be found among that steaming heap. It was simply a picture of an Amish family walking down the road. The meme said “He has 12 kids and would never use food stamps”. True enough but there’s a lot missed. It should read “Religious fanatics with 12 kids all home schooled won’t accept food stamps or raise a mass murderer”. I sometimes envy their ability to tune out what is of no interest to them.

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