I agree that we should try not to hurt innocent people; we're already sad
about the innocent people that lost their lives here. We as individuals
should try hard to avoid stereotyping. Not all Muslims nor Arabs nor
Americans are the same; we don't all condone the same actions nor have the
same beliefs. Unfortunately, there will always be ignorant people out
there that do stupid things, like the guy in Arizona that shot a man from
India apparently just because he was wearing a turban. On the other hand, I
had an Afghan client the other day that told me "I can't believe that you
went and killed someone just because he wore a turban!" I told him he was
right, that I shouldn't have done it. He was, of course, stereotyping
Americans just as he was complaining that Americans can stereotype others.
When individuals do bad things, we count on our governments to seek justice
on our behalf (just watch Law And Order on TV!). When we don't know who
did a bad thing, it's very frustrating. When we know that a bunch of
people were responsible for a bad thing, we can only punish the ones we can
identify, catch, and prove their guilt. In our system of justice, we try
hard to keep the times that innocent people pay for things they didn't do
to a minimum by choosing to err on the other side (more often, the guilty
go unpunished).
When governments decide to punish other governments, thought, the normal
rules of "They should just try to find the guy who did it!" simply don't
apply. This is a very complex thing, and even people well-versed in
history and government often don't understand the problems involved. But
if we remember that governments are made up of the people that they
represent, it becomes a little easier. Our government (that is, the
American people) have decided to punish not another country, but the belief
system that terrorism is OK. That means, according to our spokespeople,
they will try to punish not only those responsible, but those that support
the ones responsible. This is sort of like punishing not only a murderer,
but also charging those that helped her as accessories to murder.
Since governemnts represent, and are made up of, people, it means that
people will suffer. That's probably a commentary on a bit of human nature.
The only way to keep this to a minimum, for those of you that find this
appalling (as I do), is to study history and learn from it. This may be a
new kind of war, but many of the old problems will be present. For those
of you that are interested in studying history in an enjoyable way, I
recommend Isaac Asimov's book "A History Of The World From The Big Bang To
1945." It's very long, but made up of very short segements, is complete and
very easy to read (with the usual Asimov wit!).
Cheers,
dr.hat
Teens, I agree with Kelly that a Time Out on the attack subject is needed, and here's why:
This forum is really here to help out with teenage OCD and it's associated problems. We give it wide lattitude, since many things fall under this umbrella. But we do have to maintain focus.
As people with OCD, you probably sense things more strongly than many other people. As teens, you all have strongly felt passions about many things, and the experience that tempers those passions comes only with age (ugh!).
Meanwhile, Kelly and I can lend our "experience" to the list by slowing things down when strong passions are in danger of hurting the function of the list.
People will have different opinions about many things that come up here on the list, and in general you all handle these differences extremely well.
The issues that inflame passions come up when core values feel attacked.
We have dealt with diffences in religion, medicine, ethics, cultures, morals and personal philosophies in the past
(and these are tough!).
Dealing with differences in civics may be just as difficult, and might actually engage our OCD symptoms
(like the need to tell, or the need to know).
I know this won't be the last work on this topic.
But for now, a truce is in order.
dr.hat
