OK So Now We Are Suppose to Feel Sorry for the Va Tech Killer???

24

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  • Ahnimus
    Ahnimus Posts: 10,560
    Jeanwah wrote:
    You don't think that this era has anything to do with the way this kid went on a killing spree? Yes, he's sick. But he's also a product of this society and culture. He obviously knew all about Columbine. Had this kid grown up in the 70s, there's no doubt he may have used that mental instability in a very different way.

    Personally, I think the indeterminstic view of reality that holds everyone morally blame worthy for everything about them including the circumstances of their birth is the primary reason we have events like this.
    I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
  • farfromglorified
    farfromglorified Posts: 5,700
    Ahnimus wrote:
    Personally, I think the indeterminstic view of reality that holds everyone morally blame worthy for everything about them including the circumstances of their birth is the primary reason we have events like this.

    Hehehehehe.....let's examine the words of the killer then:

    "You had a hundred billion chances and ways to have avoided today. But you decided to spill my blood."

    "Do you think I want to do this? Do you think I ever dreamed of dying like this in a million years? I didn't want to do this."

    "When the time came, I did it. I had to."

    He sounds very well schooled in the idea that his choices are only effects of the choices of others.
  • Ahnimus
    Ahnimus Posts: 10,560
    farfromglorified wrote:
    Hehehehehe.....let's examine the words of the killer then:

    "You had a hundred billion chances and ways to have avoided today. But you decided to spill my blood."

    "Do you think I want to do this? Do you think I ever dreamed of dying like this in a million years? I didn't want to do this."

    "When the time came, I did it. I had to."

    He sounds very well schooled in the idea that his choices are only effects of the choices of others.

    He's not, because he is ultimately blaming other people. Causality doesn't stop with people, but he wasn't old enough or born into the right society to know that. He just knew that his life sucked because of the school society and blamed the kids.
    I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
  • farfromglorified
    farfromglorified Posts: 5,700
    Ahnimus wrote:
    He's not, because he is ultimately blaming other people.

    Yes, blaming other people for his actions. Not just saying those actions are wrong, but that those actions were the direct cause of his own.
    Causality doesn't stop with people, but he wasn't old enough or born into the right society to know that. He just knew that his life sucked because of the school society and blamed the kids.

    Of course he did, just like you blame others for their failure to accept your deterministic viewpoints which in turn dictates your responses.

    I've told you before, and I'll tell you again -- these events are the endgame of an amoral society wherein people no longer respect themselves as agents of choice, but rather see themselves as billiard balls of reaction.
  • Ahnimus
    Ahnimus Posts: 10,560
    farfromglorified wrote:
    Yes, blaming other people for his actions. Not just saying those actions are wrong, but that those actions were the direct cause of his own.

    Of course he did, just like you blame others for their failure to accept your deterministic viewpoints which in turn dictates your responses.

    I've told you before, and I'll tell you again -- these events are the endgame of an amoral society wherein people no longer respect themselves as agents of choice, but rather see themselves as billiard balls of reaction.

    I think your view of determinism is myopic, we are still agents of choice, but we know that our actions are determined, and so are others. I don't blame you for not understanding.
    I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
  • surferdude
    surferdude Posts: 2,057
    Ahnimus wrote:
    I don't blame you for not understanding.
    The ultimate insult when someone can't effectively argue their point of view. It comes across as "You're just not smart enough to understand. Too bad you're not as smart as me. I feel so superior."
    “One good thing about music,
    when it hits you, you feel to pain.
    So brutalize me with music.”
    ~ Bob Marley
  • Brain of J.Lo
    Brain of J.Lo Posts: 3,259
    Yes, I feel sorry for him. No, I'm not being sarcastic.

    Unless you believe this guy was just born evil, how can you not feel sad that this is how his life played out?

    Maybe he was mentally ill. Was that his fault? No.

    Maybe he was the victim of horrible abuse. Was that his fault? No.

    People are not born destined to be evil mass murderers. Something went horribly wrong, and he slipped unnoticed through many cracks in the system that should have been able to help him and to prevent this. That is fucking tragic -- for his victims, for his family and for him.

    I hate what he did, and there is no justification for it. It was a horrible senseless act that should never have happened.

    But try and remember that he started life as an innocent person, just like the rest of us.
  • qtegirl
    qtegirl Posts: 321
    Brain of J.Lo wrote:
    Yes, I feel sorry for him. No, I'm not being sarcastic.

    Unless you believe this guy was just born evil, how can you not feel sad that this is how his life played out?

    Maybe he was mentally ill. Was that his fault? No.

    Maybe he was the victim of horrible abuse. Was that his fault? No.

    People are not born destined to be evil mass murderers. Something went horribly wrong, and he slipped unnoticed through many cracks in the system that should have been able to help him and to prevent this. That is fucking tragic -- for his victims, for his family and for him.

    I hate what he did, and there is no justification for it. It was a horrible senseless act that should never have happened.

    But try and remember that he started life as an innocent person, just like the rest of us.

    I don't think he was evil, but I think that there was something fundamentally wrong within him. His thought process is obviously not the same as the rest of us (meaning, those of us who don't go on killing rampages).

    I mean, look at how he rationalized what he did:

    My life has sucked, therefore you must all die.

    All of you, strangers, are the same as the people who have made my life sucky, therefore I must kill you.

    Getting revenge for my single sucky life is worth the price of 33 your lifes.

    Who thinks like that? And let me tell you, having a bad childhood, getting picked on, being abused, whatever, will not cause a normal person to think that the lives of 33 other people are a worthy price to be paid for the life of a single person.
  • soulsinging
    soulsinging Posts: 13,202
    zstillings wrote:
    I am convinced that the only reason we can see that all of these kids who snap were picked on at some point in their life is because EVERYBODY is picked on for something at some point in their life. I do not feel sorry for these murderers in particular.

    but most of us were picked on at various points, on and off. most of these kids who snap were consistently picked on with no abatement. it's not like they got teased the one day they wore X. they were tormented daily for years.

    not that it excuses what happened. nor do i feel sorry for the kid. but the "picking on" he endured was not the typical teasing everyone gets.
  • Brain of J.Lo
    Brain of J.Lo Posts: 3,259
    qtegirl wrote:
    And let me tell you, having a bad childhood, getting picked on, being abused, whatever, will not cause a normal person to think that the lives of 33 other people are a worthy price to be paid for the life of a single person.


    I agree. But they could cause a seriously ill person to do those things. And he is not to blame for having an illness.

    If you think there was something fundamentally wrong within him, do you think that was his fault?
  • Ahnimus
    Ahnimus Posts: 10,560
    surferdude wrote:
    The ultimate insult when someone can't effectively argue their point of view. It comes across as "You're just not smart enough to understand. Too bad you're not as smart as me. I feel so superior."

    Haha, good example of blame. It could be that, it could be ignorance, it could be a social paradigm tightly wrapped into an engram in your brain, I don't presume to know, but it's not your fault.
    I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
  • soulsinging
    soulsinging Posts: 13,202
    Jeanwah wrote:
    This "victim" idealism is such BS.

    I mean, I was a kid in the 70s and there were the bullys and the kids that were picked on. Never, ever, did the kids that were picked on go home and get a gun and use that as a way to deal. The kids instead either continued to get picked on through life or one day had enough and confronted their bullies with their fists. It gave them courage, confidence, acceptance, the whole 9 yards. School yard fights were the norm and a harmless way (compared to guns at least) of proving a point. There's a lot to say about that simplistic era.

    There's something wrong with our society now (and the media which glorifies the "everyone's a victim" stance) if killing people is the only way to deal with being picked on. Accountability has been forgotten. And we can all blame the media for forgetting about this important trait!!

    playground fights nowadays result in law suits and criminal records. the person picked on has the choice between taking it, or going to jail for assault and having his acts in high school mar his record for life.
  • qtegirl
    qtegirl Posts: 321
    Brain of J.Lo wrote:
    I agree. But they could cause a seriously ill person to do those things. And he is not to blame for having an illness.

    If you think there was something fundamentally wrong within him, do you think that was his fault?
    I guess that's the million dollar question, and the whole point of the original article.

    Obviously, you would like to say that he chose to do these killings out of his own free will. He planed if for 6 days, made a video, drove to the post office, came back, and killed 30 more people. Clear premeditation and intent.

    But if he was sick to begin with, what choice did he really have?
  • floyd1975
    floyd1975 Posts: 1,350
    soulsinging wrote:
    but most of us were picked on at various points, on and off. most of these kids who snap were consistently picked on with no abatement. it's not like they got teased the one day they wore X. they were tormented daily for years.

    not that it excuses what happened. nor do i feel sorry for the kid. but the "picking on" he endured was not the typical teasing everyone gets.

    Many of us were mercilessly picked on. It takes an extremely selfish person to do what he did. I would have never done what these dumbasses seem to think it's alright to do and I went through years of this at times (even in college from an administrative level). I am not an exception to this either. This is not bragging. The vast majority of us would have never done this.
  • Brain of J.Lo
    Brain of J.Lo Posts: 3,259
    qtegirl wrote:
    I guess that's the million dollar question, and the whole point of the original article.

    Obviously, you would like to say that he chose to do these killings out of his own free will. He planed if for 6 days, made a video, drove to the post office, came back, and killed 30 more people. Clear premeditation and intent.

    But if he was sick to begin with, what choice did he really have?

    I just feel sad for the person who started out just like the rest of us but became a monster. Monsters are created, not born. Maybe some people would call that pity. But I do truly feel sorry for him, because of the person he could have been.
  • floyd1975
    floyd1975 Posts: 1,350
    soulsinging wrote:
    playground fights nowadays result in law suits and criminal records. the person picked on has the choice between taking it, or going to jail for assault and having his acts in high school mar his record for life.

    ...or shooting everyone around him and getting pitied by a media who wants us to all feel guilty for his crimes.
  • soulsinging
    soulsinging Posts: 13,202
    zstillings wrote:
    Many of us were mercilessly picked on. It takes an extremely selfish person to do what he did. I would have never done what these dumbasses seem to think it's alright to do and I went through years of this at times (even in college from an administrative level). I am not an exception to this either. This is not bragging. The vast majority of us would have never done this.

    i dont think t has to do with selfishness. it has to do with mental illness. this kid was clearly mentally disturbed. oyu pick on someone who already has a distorted perception of reality and you've got an accident waiting to happen. the kid was a time bomb. if he hadn't been psychotic (and i mean that in the schizophrenic, mental illness sense), then the teasing probably would not have caused it. if he hadn't been teased and tormented so much, his psychosis might have been treatable. but both together... were just too much.
  • gue_barium
    gue_barium Posts: 5,515
    zstillings wrote:
    ...or shooting everyone around him and getting pitied by a media who wants us to all feel guilty for his crimes.

    why would the media want us to feel guilty?
    and why are you feeling pity? when you claim to feel otherwise? Is it the media doing it to you?
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  • soulsinging
    soulsinging Posts: 13,202
    zstillings wrote:
    ...or shooting everyone around him and getting pitied by a media who wants us to all feel guilty for his crimes.

    i dont think that's the first choice. i think that's what you get when they try to just take it until they break and explode. maybe if he had fought back earlier he would not have gunned down a ton of people. but he would have been jailed for it and been labeled a dangerous criminal for life. this is the one way i think we need to make changes as a result of this. currently, nobody accepts provocation as a defense, and it should be. you pick on a guy and he hits back, tough shit. but right now, they jail the kid who simply couldn't take it anymore becos the popular kid says "dude, he's always been a weirdo, and we were just having some fun teasing him a bit, it was just a joke dude and we didnt mean anything by it dude, but he's a PSYCHO dude." and the kid is labeled for life as a threat, when really, he needs therapy and the harassing jackass needs to feel some consequences, be it a punch on the nose from the kid or a suspension for abuse. it doesn't excuse what this kid did, but he should have been protected BEFORE he snapped. and we don't protect those kids. now, AFTER the shooting... sorry kid, no amount of abuse gives you the right to take someone's life. im just saying this probably COULD have been stopped way before it started... we just don't listen to these kids.

    i dont think the media wants anything but ad money. and i certainly don't pity the kid. i just see a lot going on here. we cannot stop crazy people from shooting people up and those who do it are accountable. but there are things we probably CAN do to reduce the probability of such things happening, and we should do them.
  • Uncle Leo
    Uncle Leo Posts: 1,059
    soulsinging wrote:
    ... the popular kid says "dude, he's always been a weirdo, and we were just having some fun teasing him a bit, it was just a joke dude and we didnt mean anything by it dude, but he's a PSYCHO dude."

    This is a PERFECT little skit. This is how it goes. And the kid saying this after tormenting some poor kid that does not fit in is a prick who very much deserves an ass-kicking. But as you say, even though the ass-kicking is far less hurtful, it is far more illegal than the verbal abuse and the "retaliator" would be even more villified.

    And the tormenting essentially goes unpunished. Teachers tend to be OK with it, as they identify with the bullies more than their victims (and yes, those kids, and we all knew of them, were victims). If I treated people like that at work, I'd be canned. You certainly should be able to put a stop to this at school.
    I cannot come up with a new sig till I get this egg off my face.

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