Quote:
Originally Posted by mixedmedia
I think anger is natural, even hatred to a certain extent. But when you decide to start killing to assuage your feelings, then you have crossed a line to something that is not rational. Much like people who kill their spouses because they were unfaithful. Or people who go into their workplace with a gun due to real or perceived injustice. Maybe it isn't madness, but it's not rational.
Of course, this man may have any number of motivations. Power, attention, validation. Obviously he isn't picking up a gun to shoot people himself. But I think it's pretty safe to assume that his perspective has narrowed sufficiently so as to make him unstable, at the least.
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I can think of any number of leaders in the last 50 years that have said very similar things. Was Churchill mad? How about Reagan? Margaret Thatcher? Douglas MacArthur? George Patton? That's what leaders do, MM; they send their troops into battle. How is that any different than what Alwaki's said? The ONLY difference I can detect is the "how to take the fight to the enemy", but there's no diffence of degrees.
I can't decide if the rush to "he's crazy" smells like racism or not. It's entirely possible that it is a kneejerk "oh the brown guy hates us so he must be crazy" is more about his skin color (or, more pointedly his religion) than anything else. Then again, maybe it's just easier to believe than anyone who hates us, regardless of religion or skin color, must be crazy, because we're all such nice folks, after all.
WE haven't done anything wrong.
Oh, except we're dropping bombs on babies (but we've done that for years), taking over the holy places and showing up where we're not welcome and playing that damn hip-hop music and being bad guests.
Let's not act like this is a completely unjustifiable response to very specific provactions. My question remains what were those provocations and what can we do to learn from our mistakes.