“until the lion learns to speak the tales of hunting will be weak” and other euphemisms on the consequences of one-sided stories

I have a lot of ‘bad’ habits. One of them is not throwing out a newspaper until I’ve read the whole thing. As it happens, I was reading a three-day old newspaper on the train last week (Daily News of course, as I still refuse to buy the NY Post and support their bigotry with my hard earned money. I won’t pass up a free copy though, just to witness how far they fell from being a real newspaper to just a tabloid).  There was an article about Fort Hood.  The ‘anxious to be enlightened” people next to me saw me shaking my head, and I suppose, started reading along to figure out why.  They then started talking to each other, or rather bouncing cliché’s around in their mouth before spewing thoughtless conclusions to each other.

 

Maybe it was because they were directly quoting MY newspaper and making references to the article I was reading, maybe it was because I felt like I was now part of the train-wreck and was in a way responsible; that when one said to the other: “If it’s such a peaceful religion, why all the bombings? You don’t see Christians killing people”; I felt the need to interject.  So I said, “ignoring history creates the perfect environment for it to repeat itself”.  (My daddy has this way of starting conversations with sentences that belong in the middle somewhere.  He grabs your attentions, then starts from the beginning. I’ve tried this numerous times, like now, without achieving the same effect).  The other said to me “yes.  They’ve tried this before and it didn’t work.”

“That’s not what I meant.  I was referring to the inquisitions and other religious induced genocides. But now, Christianity, after committing mass murders is the religion of the world. The pope is one of the most powerful men in the world. Is it far-fetched that we’re going down that road again, just with a different religion this time?” One said I was what’s wrong with the world today, the other said even though I was obviously atheist, may god bless my heart.  The other passengers just glared.  It wasn’t my stop yet, but it was time for me to get off.

 

There’s no excuse for the loss of innocent lives. That will always be true.  In my opinion there’s never a reason to impose your beliefs on anyone else.  If their behavior doesn’t jeopardize yours in anyway, keep it moving.  Control what affects you and only you. No? Fort Hood was a tragedy.  Someone HAS to take responsibility.  I don’t know everything that happened. But I can wait for the FACTS; I have no need to rush to judgment.  Here are some facts:

So far it’s not been proven that Hassan has any terror affiliations.  He’s been victimized at work with anti-Muslim slurs and messages.  His car/property has been vandalized because of his religion. So far, it sounds like one man who was pushed beyond his breaking point.  I understand there’s a rush to fix what’s wrong and make him pay. Without the whole story, without really knowing the cause, can you really fix the real problem? Yet many people, people who should know better, are clamoring for action before getting the whole story.  Event he guy on “Meet the Press” said (and I paraphrase) “I don’t need to wait until the investigation. They let a terrorist in our camp.” Al Qeada and other extremists have yet to claim responsibility for Fort Hood

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