Saturday, August 09, 2008

I Read the News Today, Oh Boy...

This past week I had a kind of a bizarre experience. I was reading the paper and I got agitated to the point I wanted to yell out in the middle of the Burger King. I was reading back to back outrageous stories of tragedy. Both of which took place in Manitoba. What the hell?

First off was the news that the good old Westboro church of crazy was going to descend on the funeral of Tim McLean. Who the hell do these people think they are? Spewing such vile, hateful speech about a person they do not even know and taking his memorial as an opportunity to spread their message of crazy and then slapping God's name all over it as a way to justify their homophobia and disrespect for a person that God created. Anyway, I don't want to dwell any more on them, because this is the exact thing that gives them power...damn it.

Secondly, I was then reading the editorial letters of people writing in about the atrocity that happened on that bus and I was appalled even further. Now, I should establish that I clearly believe Vince Li should be locked away from society so as to not harm other people. What he did was terrible and horrific. It is quite evident that he is a disturbed mind who has given way to a violent irrationality. But what caught me off-guard was not that. What got me was the reaction of people to this crime. People want to brutally eviscerate this guy. And the disturbing and ultimately disheartening part of this whole thing is that people who are supposedly rational and good citizens would love to see this guy have his fingers ripped off or some how brutally punished so that he suffers in the most incredible way possible...as long as it was legal. If one of these civilized barbarians was given the opportunity to do whatever they wanted to Vince Li with no legal repercussions then they would unleash the worst possible torture on the guy that they could imagine and feel no remorse. What the hell is that? Can't they see the sickening irony of how these people are not that different than the mentally instable mind they want to utterly want to cut, mangle, burn and the only fucking thing holding them back is the law? They are the thing that they apparently hate with a light smattering of law glazed over the bloodlust. And they are sane. I may not be a psychologist, but I'm pretty sure that Vince Li is crazy, deranged and all that, but the people who want to do the same to him are sane? That is what I find far more disturbing about humanity. That civility is the mask of the worst, hate-filled minds.

Lastly, the situation with the Winnipeg Police in the shooting death of Craig McDougall. The frustrating part of this whole thing is that if an aboriginal armed with a knife doesn't obey an officers orders to drop the weapon and after an attempt to use a tazer on the suspect, the guy still doesn't back down and then the police shoot him that the police is accused of being racist? Even if he was holding a cell phone like some people claim, it doesn't mean that the guy should not have listened to police officers who were telling him to put it down. And then some people claim that the police shouldn't have used such unnecessary force. A gun versus a knife is unfair. So you want the police to go use knives to take down knife-wielding suspects? Or is that too much for law-enforcement? Maybe they should use wiffle bats? "No, that's too much! Have you ever been hit by one? It gives you a nasty headache for like 10 minutes! Police should use candy to take down suspects." That all being said, there should be an inquiry when someone is shot...like they already do.

I wanted to yell in anguish and frustration and anger so badly. I didn't because I didn't to be kicked out of the Burger King. I mean, I wasn't finished with my Whopper yet. Why does the world have to be like this? I guess I will have to crank up the awesome level and try to spread joy and hope more to a humanity in desperate need of healing.

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