(no subject)

[drivebyluna.livejournal.com]

I will be the first to admit that I'm desensitized to the VA shootings as I am to everything else.

Comments

[elbowmedic.livejournal.com]

its sad to say that i am too. people get upset when it but don't take the steps to prevent things like this, how many school shootings have there been in the last decade. and all of them seem to say the same about the shooters quiet kids who get pick on alot that no one really knows to much about. i haven't heard anything on the manifesto he sent to nbc this morning,i'm just going by what i had heard on wcbs these past few days.

[lyndz.livejournal.com]

Yeah... I don't think there's anything that could have been done to prevent this either, short of him getting counseling or people just being nice to each other.

It's one of the costs to living in a free society.

[annetangent.livejournal.com]

judging by the tape, this kid wasn't picked on 'til this happened, he was mentally ill. he claims to be the next jesus christ. people like to blame the situation but lots of people get teased or harrassed or picked on and turn out reasonably fine, it's not the reason for their actions. it seems here the people who were weirded out by the guy had a legitimate reason. i can't decide in a lot of cases whether it's backwards and the reason the kid was picked on was because something was wrong with him . . . not an excuse for teasing, but possible.

sorry for the babbling.

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

I would bet you $5 that fewer than 100 people die a year from school shootings in this country. Certainly less than 200.

But then an entire WTC attack dies each month in automobile "accidents" and nobody says a thing. Alcohol, 85,000 deaths a year. Tobacco, 435,000. Where's the outrage? Where are the vigils? Why isn't anyone trying to prevent these things?

Oh, right. They're not good headlines. I forgot.

[head-splitter.livejournal.com]

Well, it's not the biggest secret that Iraq is just a tad bit unstable and dangerous.

[cahier-vide.livejournal.com]

Shh!

[hippopotassium.livejournal.com]

What are you talking about? Why, the other day I was just walking down the street in Baghdad with 200 of my closest friends and a couple of helicopters. It's just plain peaceful is what it is!

[hikarugenji.livejournal.com]

The markets are just like the ones in Indiana.

[filthy-bonnet.livejournal.com]

While I'm not desensitized to the VT shootings, this cartoon makes a very vaild point I agree with. People don't seem to understand things until they happen in their own backyard and that's sad.

[cahier-vide.livejournal.com]

Wait a minute. You're surprised that a person would value the lives of their countrymen over the lives of those they happen to consider an enemy?

I'm not saying that one life is worth more than another, but certain incidents can certainly strike closer to home than others.

[oddityangel.livejournal.com]

Iraqi civilians are the enemy?

[the-dark-fyre.livejournal.com]

I just made a response to a similar thread in another community that just got started, so I'm just gonna link to that as my response to this instead of copypasting. I agree with what you're saying, btw.

My thoughts on this (http://community.livejournal.com/worldoflj/921.html?thread=921#t921)

[hoboclown.livejournal.com]

What about American soldiers? They might not be at Iraqi universities but a bunch of them are still being killed. Should that strike home?

[prock.livejournal.com]

I thought VA Tech was in Bagdad.

Is that wrong?

[poovanna.livejournal.com]

rotfl!

[the-dark-fyre.livejournal.com]

It's the whole "monkeysphere" (to steal a term from Scott Adams) thing... people care more when they can actually see the effects of what's happening. I'm pretty sure Australia exists, but I've never actually been there and I don't know anyone FROM there. Ergo, if a lot of people there were to die, it'd affect me less than if the high school I used to go to was shot up, because then it would directly affect me personally.

[shadowfox24.livejournal.com]

Wow, they haven't even had the funerals yet. But I guess it's never too early for liberals to politicize something.

[theurv.livejournal.com]

How is this a liberal issue and not just a commentary on Americans being desensitized to news outside our borders?

[hippopotassium.livejournal.com]

In all honesty, I think both sides were a bit too eager to jump out this as a political issue.

That said, this cartoon isn't criticizing a particular political orientation as much as a critical flaw in the worldview of many Americans.

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

Conservatives started politicizing mere hours after the shootings.

[theurv.livejournal.com]

Within 20 mins of getting the news alert about the shooting there, I got another e-mail telling me there was a car bombing in Iraq that cause 118 deaths and hundreds of injuries. Yet lots of people have black ribbons for VT, and not one of those even knew of the car bomb despite it being three times more deadly, and part of the single deadliest day in the war since the campaign started...

[elbowmedic.livejournal.com]

its time to worry about our back yard not the other guys yard across town, we take care of our own, the civil war going on along with the war in iraq makes for alot of deaths, if our troops where allowed to fight a war without the current restrictions, the amount of iraqi domestic acts of terrorism would be on a steady decline. in bagdad alone there is 16 blocks that the military cannot conduct operations despite they know that there is alot of al qaeda resources inside.
do i care if a bunch of people are killed by there own kind? a little but most suicide bombers are educated college students or graduates. the poor don't care about war they care about food and shelter, they aren't activists. i care that future leaders of america where killed at vt because they are our own.

[kadaria.livejournal.com]

An exchange student that I work with in the library got talking with me while we were shelving and she mentioned that she really liked coming to college in the US because it was so stable. I didn't understand, being ignorant of her homeland but she told me that her education was often interuppted because of "political problems", at least here she could complete a semester.
This cartoon reminded me how we take this stability for granted though our campuses are hardly completely safe. 33 people were shot and killed at VT, but how many people are raped, mugged or targets of hate crimes on any other college campus? And the other posters are correct in that this is not the first time that a shooting has happened the two examples coming to mind being the Penn State shooting (near my hometown) and the Montreal Massacre.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

Here's a timely piece of writing (http://www.adequacy.org/stories/2001.9.12.102423.271.html). Just replace "World Trade Center" with "Virginia Tech," and so on.

Of course the World Trade Center bombings are a uniquely tragic event, and it is vital that we never lose sight of the human tragedy involved. However, we must also consider if this is not also a lesson to us all; a lesson that my political views are correct. Although what is done can never be undone, the fact remains that if the world were organised according to my political views, this tragedy would never have happened.

Many people will use this terrible tragedy as an excuse to put through a political agenda other than my own. This tawdry abuse of human suffering for political gain sickens me to the core of my being. Those people who have different political views from me ought to be ashamed of themselves for thinking of cheap partisan point-scoring at a time like this. In any case, what this tragedy really shows us is that, so far from putting into practice political views other than my own, it is precisely my political agenda which ought to be advanced.

Not only are my political views vindicated by this terrible tragedy, but also the status of my profession. Furthermore, it is only in the context of a national and international tragedy like this that we are reminded of the very special status of my hobby, and its particular claim to legislative protection. My religious and spiritual views also have much to teach us about the appropriate reaction to these truly terrible events.

Countries which I like seem to never suffer such tragedies, while countries which, for one reason or another, I dislike, suffer them all the time. The one common factor which seems to explain this has to do with my political views, and it suggests that my political views should be implemented as a matter of urgency, even though they are, as a matter of fact, not implemented in the countries which I like.

Of course the World Trade Center attacks are a uniquely tragic event, and it is vital that we never lose sight of the human tragedy involved. But we must also not lose sight of the fact that I am right on every significant moral and political issue, and everybody ought to agree with me. Please, I ask you as fellow human beings, vote for the political party which I support, and ask your legislators to support policies endorsed by me, as a matter of urgency.

It would be a fitting memorial.

Not much I can add to that.