How Not to Bear Witness
Via the blog report via carpetbagger, John "Self Defense" Derbyshire gives us a sparkling example of how not to bear witness. And a sparkling example of the horrifying, small-minded nastiness that usually shows up under the name "anonymous" on the internets. In the midst of the tiring, repetitive, sometimes fascinating coverage, Derbyshire focuses on the masculinity of the victims (who were actually not all males, but whether the women who ran away from the homicidal maniac are also of questionable masculinity is not addressed). The Carpetbagger Report makes this point with more specific details regarding gun types, but I'd like to make it from a slightly different perspective.
When people are fighting in a war, they've probably thought recently about their own mortality and are aware that their lives are on the line. But when you're a college student sitting in your Monday morning German class, I don't see how you could possibly embrace the knowledge of your impending death as instantaneously as you would need to in order to run at a person who has suddenly appeared and who intends to shoot you.
And the idea that somebody would say publicly, the day after such a tragedy, that these random victims, who have to be both traumatized and grieving, are somehow, with any stretch of the imagination, in any way at fault is disgusting. I'm disgusted. It's fucking sadistic. How completely insane does a person have to be to act in a mean-spirited way towards people whose lives have just been ripped apart?
When people are fighting in a war, they've probably thought recently about their own mortality and are aware that their lives are on the line. But when you're a college student sitting in your Monday morning German class, I don't see how you could possibly embrace the knowledge of your impending death as instantaneously as you would need to in order to run at a person who has suddenly appeared and who intends to shoot you.
And the idea that somebody would say publicly, the day after such a tragedy, that these random victims, who have to be both traumatized and grieving, are somehow, with any stretch of the imagination, in any way at fault is disgusting. I'm disgusted. It's fucking sadistic. How completely insane does a person have to be to act in a mean-spirited way towards people whose lives have just been ripped apart?
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