Reply #137: What's wrong with me?

[QC]

I'm tired of seeing tragedies turned into nothing more occasions for the self-righteous at DU to re-spew their favorite bigotries yet again, which has become a constant thing here since the election. Someone points to an act of criminality and/or stupidity in a state where a majority voted for Bush and others leap in with unfounded, baseless speculation attributing that act to everyone who lives there.

Did you catch the thread about the small town in Louisiana that recently lost six people in the war? Quite a few DUers were falling all over themselves to rush in and declare that the bastards deserved it for voting for Bush. (Of course, they had no way of knowing for whom these people voted, but when did mere facts ever get in the way of someone eager to proclaim his or her own righteousness and heap condemnations upon the wicked?) It was positively ghoulish--six dead people were nothing more than grist for the mill.

I can well appreciate your passion here, because this is a monstrous crime and the thought of how that girl suffered--and how her mother will have to live with what she has done--is almost unbearable. I believe you when you say that you did not want to make this a religious discussion, and if I had known that, I would not have reacted as I did. There have been many posts here that have rushed to make what happened a matter of religious fanaticism gone violent, even though there is nothing in the facts of the crime that we now have to suggest that. For these people, they see the word "Alabama" and that is all the evidence they need. That is bigotry, and it's something that we should know better than to engage in. If you doubt me, consider what would have been the reaction here if people had made the same kinds of unfounded speculations based on this woman's race or sex. Tombstones would have been flying right and left and the thread would have vanished.

As for getting out and volunteering and all that, you have no need to worry about me. I became a teacher so that I could help people have a better shot at life. In other words, I spend the majority of my waking hours trying to educate people away from these things, not merely thinking about it. It's satisfying work, and I wouldn't do anything else.

It sounds like you and I are mostly in agreement here, and I am sorry that there has been any conflict between us.