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Response to Katie’s forum

Response to Katie’s forum on McVeigh

Sometimes I find it unbelievable that people find it easier to sympathize with someone like Timothy McVeigh, than to try and sympathize with the actual victims. I guess thats the kind of world we live in.

Personally, I’m far from being pro-government. Like alot of americans, I think that most of our politicians are swayed by money and greed than by trying to do what is in the best interest of ordinary people, like you and me. I also think that america sticks their collective noses in way too many worldy situations, that really have nothing to do with us. We fight wars that we dont need to fight, and we ignore our own people who are starving and homeless, but send aid to homeless and starving people in other countries.

I do, however, believe that its the governments responsibility to deal with those individuals that threaten the safety of the american people. Thats why we hire police, appoint judges and vote in elected officials. So that someone else will do the job we are too lazy to do. Most americans dont even want to do jury duty, let alone be there own police, decide how to punish criminals, and be responsible for deciding new legistlature. Of course, then these people make decisions and everyone begins complaining, and offering absolutely no solutions.

I’ve read alot about how unfair it is and how barbaric it is to even consider capital punishment, and more appaulingly read many of you putting McVeigh up on some sort of pedestal. However, I havent read many alternative ways of dealing with people like this. Sure, we can send him to jail and pay for his food, cable and internet connection, which most of our schools dont even have, I might add … and perhaps, you can all bake him his favorite muffins and send him greeting cards at christmas. Or, you can start offering up some suggestions on how to deal with the problem, you can start voting, you can start writing to your political leaders and you can start trying to change what you see as a problem.

Thats the nice part about America. You have the “right to free speech”. You can have a strong feeling about something and try to do something about it, which doesnt always mean handing out pamphlets, sometimes it means getting off your ass and running for office. However, just because you feel strongly about something, doesnt mean you have the right to blow up a fucking building with innocent people in it. Do you feel that the people blowing up abortion clinics are “admirable” and “have balls”? Those people also feel very strongly about something, but dont have the right to harm innocent people.

I think people need to remember that there were 168 innocent people involved in this. They never hurt him, they never even knew him. And then one day they were sitting in their offices, playing with their toys and sucking their bottles and got murdered. Those are the people I’m thinking about, not how, gosh, the government was really bad to execute him. Of course, with the exception of Jason, I can also tell that most of you have never had someone close to you murdered. It changes you and your view on things.

As I said in the beginning, our government is far from perfect and far from “for the people”. But, I also think that “the people” are far too content to sit by and let the government do what they want. Most people dont want to get involved. They just want to live their lives and let others handle the dirty work … and of course, complain after the fact. We drive by car accidents and stare, but dont call for help … we allow that neighbor next door to get beat up by her husband because we dont want trouble … and we let our government take care of business their way, because it takes too much time to actually start a campaign to reform things.

If you dont like capital punishment, then suggest an alternative … start a campaign … write a letter … rather than simply complaining about the problem and doing nothing to fix it.

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