Refusing to Hate

Police officers realize that even with the best tactics, equipment and training bad things still happen to nice people. When they do, it is easy to feel anger and let it turn into hatred. I was greeted by these words this morning, written by my daughter Katy. I offer them as the best expression of how I feel.

"The easiest emotion in this situation is to hate; hate the kid, hate his parents, hate this society that seems to ignore another school shooting because "only" one person got killed. But as cliche as it is, an eye for an eye makes the world blind. His parents need our sympathy, prayers and kindness. Her parents need our sympathy, prayers and kindness. This society needs people to continue to raise their children with kindess in their hearts and empathy for their fellow man. Bad things will always happen but if we let it break our spirit and nothing good comes of it, the bad guys win. As hard as it may be and as much as it tries to break the collective spirit of this being a good world in which to raise children, we explain to our children that sometimes people do bad things but it's all the more reason to continue to do good."

Meanwhile, Outside the Beltway

In this very real world, good doesn't drive out evil. Evil doesn't drive out good. But the energetic displaces the passive.

William Bernbach 

Some young man brings the family firearm to a middle school. He kills a teacher, wounds a couple of classmates and then ends his own life. "Authorities" are trying to determine how the student obtained the weapon and why he engaged in the rampage.

Meanwhile, the national conversation is - who was to blame for "shutting down" the government. Was it the evil Republicans, the spiteful President or some other devious political operative pursuing some hope of future electoral gains? Perfect.

At what point do real world problems become a national passion? Passing symbolic laws like Colorado's magazine limits accomplishes nothing concrete. Rather - is there some way to keep firearms out of the hands of people who would use them to kill others?

Maybe the answer is no. Can we at least stop talking about the idiots in Washington for ten seconds and focus on the things that the other three hundred million of us care about?