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Lizzie Poppet

(10,164 posts)
9. It's a fair point, really.
Tue Dec 11, 2012, 10:47 PM
Dec 2012

Sweeping public policy decisions are best made on the basis of verifiable fact, and in the cool light of objectivity...not in the emotionally overwrought aftermath of a tragedy.

I rather suspect that incidents of this type may increase...not so much because of our regulation of weapons (or relative lack thereof) or such factors, but because of an ever-increasing trend of alienation in our society, a fairly rapid waning of our sense of cultural oneness, of community. As we retreat further and further into smaller,. more isolated circles of friends and family, communicating more digitally than "organically," the humanity of persons not in that circle will become ever more theoretical, less real on a gut level.

It's not so much that a previously normal individual flips a switch and becomes someone completely different, with a radically different value system. It's a gradual process, one that includes turning most other human beings into objects of no real value or import...no connection. The switch that flips is a little one...much of the work has already been done.

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