When it comes to our own actions, are we potentates or puppets?

Michael J. Mathias at Pundit Nation thinks we’re all collectively responsible for two murders: one carried out by an angry teen the other by U.S. troops.

He writes:

“I can’t stop thinking we all share some responsibility for these terrible crimes. Our gun laws. Our war. Our inability to understand how school shootings happen. The sense that, viagra sovaldi perhaps, viagra usa pills the odd Iraqi civilian death is just the price that is paid. Are Hainstock and Hutchins doing enough time or too little time? Is it the time they deserve or the time we deserve?”

I’ll be happy to answer that rhetorical question: it’s the time they deserve.

The people who committed these murders weren’t forced to do it at gunpoint.

They chose to do wrong and they’re the ones who deserve the blame…not the rest of us.

Every day, people in similar circumstances choose not to kill their principals and not to commit war crimes.

When you blame society or circumstance for the actions of a criminal or killer, you insult all the brave men and women in similar situations who make better choices.

We all either exercise free will or enjoy freedom from responsibility.

We are either potentates or puppets.

And I, for one, believe in individual autonomy not collective culpability.

1 comment August 6th, 2007


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Being in a wheelchair gives you a unique perspective on the world. This blog features many of my views on politics, art, science, and entertainment. My name is Elliot Stearns. More...

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