Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Connecticut Tragedy and Heroism

No one should have to feel this.
During this continental-wide mourning for the victims, the community, and the families surrounding the Connecticut shooting tragedy, I have found myself listening intently and waiting for some closure.

Some reason for this terrible thing.

Some explanation for the brutality of patricide and the absolute barbarism of the shooting of children and the heroic teachers who gave their lives trying to defend them. (I'll get back to that in a minute.)

First, I would like to extend my deepest ... sympathy? Thoughts? Sadness?  Honestly, I am left without the proper words for the depth of emotion that I feel as a parent (and, in fact, as a human) over this.

I feel it necessary to apologize for not being possessed of the literary acumen to relay my message to those wracked with the weight of this tragedy, and I am left with only these words;

My thoughts are with you.

I struggle to know what else to do.

I am sure that I am not alone in this, but I know that SOME people DO know what to do.

They use it.

They use it as an opportunity to give their agendas weight in the arena of public opinion.

They are those who use it to call for prayer in the classroom.

Those who use it to call for a change to a more religious curriculum.

Those who use it to defend their political opinions.

Or even those who are using it as a platform to "praise" their god.

I understand that it is only natural to hope for something that can offer comfort, but this is different. There is not comfort in this, but a joy. Joy at the amazing nature of their idea or God.

I am not going to get into who, and what and where specifically because I feel that would take me off point and into discussing individual events, but I WILL get into what I think of that sort of opportunism.

It is DISGUSTING!

People saying that God saved one child, or that he guided that teacher to save her class at the expense of her life is disgusting.  Or taking away from her heroism to give praise to their "god"?

DISGUSTING!

If you believe that, then you are free to do so.  But for the sake of everyone else, keep it to yourself.

Victoria Soto. She was a hero. Not your god. HER. No one forced her and she deserves to be remembered as such on her own merit.


I am bothered that people would be so callous as to imply that this woman was anything less than fully responsible for the heroic acts that ended up costing her everything.

I am bothered by the people who think that they can take away from the evil of this man to suggest that it was not his fault, but OUR fault for removing obligatory prayer from the classroom.

DISGUSTING!

You say that God influenced her to save them but that he couldn't just influence the shooter not to go shoot in the first place? Screw you and your god then if that is the case!

Keep his evil to yourself.

You can certainly argue for the merits of prayer in the classroom (you would be wrong of course but I digress) but to deflect blame from the person responsible just to give your silly argument weight is awful and disrespects the memory of the victims whose lives he took.

It also gets to me when I hear about how God saved the one child who lived by hiding under the dead bodies of her classmates. You think that God gave her the inspiration to do such a terrible and scarring thing to save herself but that he couldn't inspire someone with a plan to save everyone? Words perhaps that might have had the divine power to talk him down? If not then screw your god, and you too for worshiping such an evil being!

For every time these things are said, there is a flip side that is disgusting to the memory of the victims.

God saved that little girl? The flip side is that god loved her more than the others.  How awful a thing is that to say to the parents of the fallen children?  Explain to the parents why she was spared and their child was not good enough.

The lack of prayer in the classroom is the reason for the tragedy? The flip side is that the shooter is not to blame, but that it was the punishment of an evil being to kill children and their protectors for the petty crime of not forcing people to love him enough.

God called them home?  God needed them more than we did? The flip side is that HE IS AN ASSHOLE!  I have had this said when I lost friends from oversea conflict. It makes me very upset to hear this.  I needed my friends, he is an infinite being (according to them) and can wait. He is mysterious? Mysterious is only a cover for us having to admit that, if he is responsible for these things, that he is an ass.

This is what I have to say;

These children died because of a sick sick man.
Teachers risked, and gave, their lives because they are heroes not because they were coerced.
Some children survived and some died. That is the tragedy.

Stop telling me that God chose some to live and let others die.
Stop telling me that God chose to show his love by saving one "worthy" child and not all.
Stop telling me that God was the hero who risked everything.


STOP!

There is real pain here, and your nonsense isn't helping.



4 comments:

  1. In the years before and after the rise of Hitler, German school children were required to say a non-sectarian prayer every morning, and received religious instruction for at least one hour a week in the public schools (Catholics, Protestants, and Jews were separated into groups and were taught by state approved religious leaders).

    So much for prayer in school leading to morality.

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  2. Well said Martin. I just hate that they are making hateful statements like that, because it is blaming the victim and society for the killings as punishment for a "crime" instead of blaming the terrible person who did it. What an awful thing to say.

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  3. It's very simple and almost always the same thing: Nuts with guns.

    Too many nuts. Too many guns.

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    1. You have missed the point of the post. I wasn't talking about the nuts who used guns to commit this crime, I was talking about the nuts who are using crimes like this as ammunition to bolster their political advantage.
      Like using the connecticut murders as a conduit to bring the prayer in school debate back to prominence.
      It is disgusting.

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