Okay, it might be a bit soon, but...
Alright, chances are it's far too soon for a blog with this, and most people probably would object to it, but it does need saying, and I am going to say it. =P
It's been about four days since the shootings at Virginia Tech. 32 people are dead that absolutely did not deserve to be due to a lunatic that probably should have been in a sanitarium over a college campus. Families and lives have been invariably destroyed that will, in all likelihood, never fully recover (If at all). However, in listening to news commentary, I've heard things that absolutely disgust me as both a writer and someone that cares about our civil liberties. For example, on CNN on Tuesday, I remember hearing some commentators discussing the plays that were written by the killer, and I heard one of them say something along the lines of:
Commentator: Y'know, looking at this, it makes me sorry that we can't imprison people for intent...
Okay. I agree that his plays look like a seventh grader wrote them. I agree that they're saturated with absolutely unnecessary violence and curses slapped in for no reason other than to look cool. However, what that commentator stated is that we should strip people of their freedom and treat them as criminals for writing.
See any similarities? I'unno, what came to mind was Nazi Germany.
Irregardless of how unsavory or how horrible his writing may be, it is absolutely no pretext to imprison someone. I remember hearing one of the English professors the killer had stating something along the lines of "writing about violence and acting violently are two entirely different things..." and it makes me sick to know that people ignore this basic fact and assume that anyone who writes about suffering is a psychopath who, unless restrained, is going to run in and shoot up a school. To compound this, this incident will end up being used to justify acting preemptively on perfectly innocent writers. Even before this, I heard stories from a friend or two of mine that stated they were suspended from school because of something they wrote that administration decided was "inappropriate" with violent content. If that isn't the most blatant violation of First Amendment rights conceivable, I do not know what is.
Again, I stress: It is horrible that thirty-two people that did not deserve to die did. There are other factors that should have drawn attention to the killer (Stalking people is a big one). I, in no way whatsoever, attempt to condone what he did, in fact, this incident affected me more greatly than anything else in the news this year -- I lit a candle on Monday. But to take action on someone because of something they wrote, to take action because of nothing but a simple expression, is absolutely sickening and disgusting, and there are no more effective words to describe that.
A quote from Voltaire exemplifies what I'm trying to express, in far fewer words. He stated, "I absolutely disagree with what you are saying, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." If we are not allowed to say and think what we feel, if we are not allowed to release pent-up emotions through words and images -- we might have more of these types of things happening on a more frequent basis.
Asdf. People that don't think about what they're saying in respect to fundamental rights annoy me to no end.
It's been about four days since the shootings at Virginia Tech. 32 people are dead that absolutely did not deserve to be due to a lunatic that probably should have been in a sanitarium over a college campus. Families and lives have been invariably destroyed that will, in all likelihood, never fully recover (If at all). However, in listening to news commentary, I've heard things that absolutely disgust me as both a writer and someone that cares about our civil liberties. For example, on CNN on Tuesday, I remember hearing some commentators discussing the plays that were written by the killer, and I heard one of them say something along the lines of:
Commentator: Y'know, looking at this, it makes me sorry that we can't imprison people for intent...
Okay. I agree that his plays look like a seventh grader wrote them. I agree that they're saturated with absolutely unnecessary violence and curses slapped in for no reason other than to look cool. However, what that commentator stated is that we should strip people of their freedom and treat them as criminals for writing.
See any similarities? I'unno, what came to mind was Nazi Germany.
Irregardless of how unsavory or how horrible his writing may be, it is absolutely no pretext to imprison someone. I remember hearing one of the English professors the killer had stating something along the lines of "writing about violence and acting violently are two entirely different things..." and it makes me sick to know that people ignore this basic fact and assume that anyone who writes about suffering is a psychopath who, unless restrained, is going to run in and shoot up a school. To compound this, this incident will end up being used to justify acting preemptively on perfectly innocent writers. Even before this, I heard stories from a friend or two of mine that stated they were suspended from school because of something they wrote that administration decided was "inappropriate" with violent content. If that isn't the most blatant violation of First Amendment rights conceivable, I do not know what is.
Again, I stress: It is horrible that thirty-two people that did not deserve to die did. There are other factors that should have drawn attention to the killer (Stalking people is a big one). I, in no way whatsoever, attempt to condone what he did, in fact, this incident affected me more greatly than anything else in the news this year -- I lit a candle on Monday. But to take action on someone because of something they wrote, to take action because of nothing but a simple expression, is absolutely sickening and disgusting, and there are no more effective words to describe that.
A quote from Voltaire exemplifies what I'm trying to express, in far fewer words. He stated, "I absolutely disagree with what you are saying, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." If we are not allowed to say and think what we feel, if we are not allowed to release pent-up emotions through words and images -- we might have more of these types of things happening on a more frequent basis.
Asdf. People that don't think about what they're saying in respect to fundamental rights annoy me to no end.